K’bu Docs issue 48hr ‘Ebola ultimatum’

Junior Doctors at Ghana’s biggest referral health facility, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, are threatening “to advise themselves” if management fails to put in place adequate measures to handle Ebola patients at the health post.

The Doctors have given the management a 48-hour ultimatum to come up with a clear strategy towards dealing with the haemorrhagic fever at Africa’s third largest health post should the virus enter Ghana.

Ebola has so far killed more than 1,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, and still spreading in the West African sub-Region.

Ghana has already tested 57 suspected cases across 9 of the country’s 10 Regions, but none proved positive.

Fears are, however, rife that the disease will eventually make an entry into the cocoa-producing country which has a population of about 25 million people.

The Government of Ghana has rolled out some anti-Ebola measures throughout the country to fight the disease should it break. In addition to three strategic isolation centres, Ebola screening has now become routine at the Kotoka International Airport, the ports and other entry points into the country.

The Korle Bu Doctors say they want the Hospital to set up appropriate holding points and isolation centres within the facility, as well as draw a detailed workable plan to specify how to handle any Ebola patients and their relatives.

Additionally, they want protective clothing for medical staff as well as appropriate training of frontline health staff about how to handle the disease.

In a letter to the management of the hospital, the Doctors warned that failure to provide these measures will mean that health workers, as well as relatives of Ebola patients and other members of the public, will be exposed to the disease if it breaks in Ghana.