Two weeks after the Ministry of Health assured all systems were in place to deal with any Ebola cases coming into T&T, health workers are now threatening to withhold their services out of fear that they can contract the virus.In an immediate response, Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan is advising health workers on the frontline if they cannot do the job, they "should get out of the system."
He said so to reporters yesterday following an awards ceremony at the National Alcohol and Drug Prevention Programme (Nadapp) conference room, Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain.sked to provide an update on T&T's preparedness to handle Ebola cases and if local health workers were fully equipped to treat with such people, Khan said although surveillance measures were in place, management measures still needed to be put in place.
During a stakeholder meeting at the National Operations Centre, Port-of-Spain, on August 12, acting chief medical officer Dr Colin Furlonge said a 12-bed triage area had been set up at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC), Mt Hope.He said two 24-bed wards also had been set up at the Caura Hospital and three rooms at the EWMSC Intensive Care Unit had been identified to be used for the isolation and quarantine of anyone diagnosed with the virus.
Asked to clarify yesterday if those measures were adequate, Khan said: "We are looking at protocols and how to handle it. Surveillance measures are in place but management measures still need to be put in place."Faced with concerns by port health workers, who are the first agents of contact for people entering the country, Khan said: "The health workers are at risk and are the ones we have to make sure are properly protected."
He said it might become necessary for those workers to don gowns, masks and protective head gear when dealing with arriving passengers.Saying it was a matter of a normal management of any disease or virus, Khan admitted that "plenty" workers had come forward expressing concerns."The concerns they are bringing to us are basically that they are scared to deal with the problem so we have to make sure they are well protected.
"We have to get the capacity. I don't think anybody has the capacity right now to deal with Ebola because it has not been fully contained, so I don't want to say we have the capacity."We have the capacity for surveillance but now we have to work on management," Khan said.Revealing that there had been two instances last week when local authorities were alerted by airlines about arriving passengers who had been stereotyped and profiled, Khan assured there were no suspected cases in T&T.
"Two cases last week we thought might have had it. The persons were not in Nigeria for a while but were coming to T&T after a four-year hiatus. We are looking at how we assess and profile arriving passengers, especially where they started their journey," Khan said.Asked about a proposed meeting with regional heads and medical experts to discuss Ebola, Khan said Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar requested a meeting be held and as such, "we are working on it now and putting things in place."
Asked about the thermal cameras he had considered installing to help in detecting higher than normal body temperatures in arriving passengers, Khan said:
"We are looking to see if it is the correct approach. Remember the viruses have an incubation period so fever may not be detected right away because if somebody doesn't have a fever, you won't pick it up. For ChickV, the incubation period is seven to ten days, while Ebola is 21 days."