Says people may have to live with it like HIV/AIDS, others

Demand for percentage of salary as hazard allowance

Urge Deltans to comply with the stay at home order

By Festus Ahon – Asaba

Delta State branch of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, yesterday lamented that it may be difficult to completely defeat the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, saying that people may have to live with it like HIV/AIDS and other ailments/ diseases.

Briefing newsmen in Asaba, yesterday, Chairman of the NMA in the State, Dr Ekeneam Omo, expressed hope that a vaccine would soon be produced that would boosts peoples immunity against the dreaded virus that would make them adapt to it.

On what was being used to treat patients with the coronavirus, Omo said chloroquine was one of the drugs being administered on the patients, urging the State Government to sustain the temple by doing more in terms of improving on the existing facilities and continuous provision of Personal Protective Equipment, PPE to healthcare personnel.

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Lamenting that 25 Doctors were currently being isolated at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, he said a percentage of consolidated basic salary should be paid as hazard allowance to Doctors and other health workers taking care of COVID-19 patients. He decried that they have lost three Medical Doctors to the virus in the country, including a Corp member.

While commending the State Government for the facilities it has put on the ground to take care of index cases, he also thanked the State Government for its proactive step to prevent the outbreak or contain the spread of the virus in the State by the closure of all entry borders.

Omo urged residents of the State to comply with the State Government stay at home directive on containment of the dreaded coronavirus pandemic, enjoining the State Government to provide hospitals with “N95 facemasks, gloves, face shields, goggles, aprons, and Hazmat suit”.

He also asked for “the institution of the compensation package for all Doctors and healthcare workers who die or suffer disability from attending to patients suffering from COVID-19 infection, which could be in the form of life or disability insurance.

“Tax relief on earned allowances for all healthcare workers as a morale booster to continue to take the risks associated with working in this pandemic period. Special allowances for volunteer healthcare workers at the case management centre throughout the duration of their stay at the centres.

“We urge the State Government to put measures in place to contain the spread and prevent a second surge of the COVID-19 virus after the lockdown period,” pledging their continued cooperation with the State Government to ensure that services were unhindered.

Vanguard