Healthcare workers must obey COVID-19 Protocols

– Minister Anthony

HEALTHCARE worker at all levels must always enforce COVID-19 protocols to help protect
the nation said Minister Dr Frank Anthony.
“We do have protocols in place so when somebody tests positive s/he has to go into isolation.
They have the option of either institutional isolation or self-isolation. The protocol is very well
known… whether employee or not this is what should be done and you don’t have to wait five
days for this to happen. That happens also immediately once anyone is tested positive. We have a
team that will call to inform patients and reveal their results and detail the necessary actions they
need to take,” Minister Anthony said.
Anthony made the pronouncement that a Regional Democratic Council (RDC) employee from
Upper Demerara/Berbice (Region Ten) tested positive with the deadly contagious COVID-19
disease but the individual’s status was inadvertently not disclosed to her colleagues until five
days after the results were available.
When the information was finally made public by Regional Executive Officer (REO) Mr.
Dwight John there was uncontrollable fear among RDC employees. John expressed remorse over
the issue explaining to staff that he felt that the office of the Regional Health Officer (RHO) was
the competent authority to pronounce on the COVID-19 status of staff.
“This is a new disease and everybody does not have the information regarding it. But we have
run a lot of training to ensure that people understand the disease and what they need to do. One
of the big issues that health-workers had were issues of PPEs (personal protective equipment),
we have been addressing that constantly and now we have an upsurge in the use of PPEs we have
to constantly buy new PPEs to make sure that we have enough in the system,” Minister Anthony
explained.
He lauded the nation’s health-care workers who continue showing up for work consistently
despite the enormous pressures and exhausting challenges over the last nine months.

“By and large the health workers have been working…since March and we continue to work
with them to ensure that we get messages out and to keep the population safe so that is an
important thing,” Anthony reiterated.
He dismissed the notion of health-care saboteurs in Guyana’s health sector endangering patients’
lives.
“The countries of the world are facing a serious epidemic and peoples’ lives of people depend on
healthcare professionals. Therefore, I shudder to think that they would be people who have taken
these vows (the Hippocratic Oath) to serve our public would deliberately want to break them,”
Minister Anthony said, referring to local health workers.
“I don’t think that we have those types of people (in the local health sector) but we want to work
with everybody and I am very hopeful. When I visit some of the institutions, people are fatigued
but nevertheless they come to work and serve and that is a good thing,” Anthony offered
philosophically.
But just perchance there is the odd worker intent on undermining the health sector, Anthony said
this would be “unfortunate”.
On the issue of risks faced by health-care employees, Anthony said his Ministry has put systems
in place to help minimise hazards to workers but acknowledged “there are degrees of danger that
people who work in the health system would have, so those who work maybe in an ICU
(Intensive Care Unit) with COVID-19 patients would be at a far higher risk than those in some
other wards.”
By and large “we have been able to sort out some of these things and put protocol in place…our
health workers have been working” well, Anthony reminisced.
Region Ten’s REO John had assured www.aroundtheregions.com that all Upper
Demerara/Berbice employees who wants to undergo a COVID-19 test can do so.
John kept his promise.