Accra (Greater Accra) 7 April ?99

Out-patients departments in public hospitals in Accra remained empty on Tuesday as the strike by junior nurses entered its seventh day. The nurses have refused to heed the call by the Minister of Health, Mr Samuel Nuamah Donkor to resume work whilst negotiations continue.

During a visit by the GNA to some of the hospitals, emergency and accidents centres were also empty. Senior nursing officers at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital who have been holding the fort since last Wednesday running a 12-hour shift met on Tuesday to discuss how to handle the situation, especially patients on admission. Miss Comfort Odoi, Acting Director of Nursing Services at the hospital, said no patient has been admitted since the strike action and senior nurses are taking care of those who were on admission before the action.

There are over 500 patients at the hospital but there are only a few senior nurses running 12-hour shifts to take care of them. "Not until we receive directives from our association, the nurses will be forced to work from 0800 hours to 2000 hours for the morning shift and from 2000 hours to 0800 hours for the night shift". Most of the senior nurses who are elderly women complained of fatigue because only one nurse is assigned to each ward which has between 28 and 35 patients. Miss Odoi said the new working hours are becoming too heavy for the senior nurses who, as departmental heads, work together with at least three or four others on a normal shift. For example, she said, in the Department of Allied Surgery that mainly has accident victims, there are about 113 patients currently on admission in the 18 wards but has only six nursing officers to care for them now.

She appealed to the health authorities to address the problem on time to save the senior nurses from breaking down or there will be nobody to take care of the patients.

At Korle Bu Polyclinic, Dr Evelyn Millicent Lamptey, Principal Medical Officer, said though junior nurses are not working, doctors are around to attend to a few patients who report. However, she said, in the absence of junior nurses, "we do not allow them to detain patients with serious cases because the few senior nurses who are on duty cannot cope." GNA also found out that para-medical staff, including laboratory and X-ray technicians, pharmacists and dispensary attendants, were not working.

In addition, enrolled and community nurses who are not members of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association were also not on duty in any of the hospitals and clinics visited. At 37 Military Hospital, Dr D. A. Twum, Commanding Officer, said though demands are heavy, the situation is not chaotic. He explained that experiences from strike actions in the health sector which have been regular in the past 10 years and the one by the doctors last December had forced the hospital to evolve methods to address such situations. Dr Twum mentioned some of the methods as the running of two shifts as against the previous three and admission of patients for shorter periods.

Departments facing a huge influx of patients include the accident and emergency, maternity, female and some male wards. Dr Twum said his worry is the dwindling resources of the hospital such as gloves and drips. The long hours that the staff have to put in are beginning to take their toll, he said. "We expect that the Ministry of Health would step in with supplies of some of these gloves and other resources...." He appealed to families to come for their bodies since the mortuary is choked.