Coronavirus: Trying to define what front-line health worker is has the potential of causing apathy

The health care delivery chain is so complex and complicated. Trying to define what frontline health worker is has the potential of causing apathy, disinterest, and discrimination among some people.

For instance, the letter from the health ministry which has listed the supposed beneficiaries, has included public health officers and excluded PAs, and some clinical nurses.

This is very problematic because of how healthcare is structured and delivered in our country. Some public health officers include the disease control, nutrition, health promotion, health information among many others. Some of these people listed do not come into direct contact with the patient. Most of them are rather preventive staff and not curative, which is the core of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of them have in fact, never come into contact with a sick patient in their entire practice. Yet they are those the health ministry deems necessary to include and rather exclude PAs and clinical nurses who form the majority of the health sector workforce.

While I don’t begrudge government for recognizing the important role of public health officers, it is only just to include PAs and clinical nurses to the list.

In my view, all people who are actively working on all sick patients should be considered and paid the controversial 50% base salary increase. Right from the cleaner, mortuary worker, ambulance driver, nurses, PAs, doctors, anaesthetists, pharmacists etc. The list should include all the public health officers mentioned above. This is fair. This is just.

Nurses are the most riskier among all the healthcare providers listed by virtue of the nature of their work. While the doctor can write his notes without necessarily touching the patient, the nurse does not have that luxury. The nurse stays with the patient 24/4. The doctor may stay with the patient for a few minutes in most cases.

For me, at this point, the government’s bowl of gari is stone infested. And she must chew with greater caution. In other words, the current situation puts government in a position where, if care is not taken, apathy can set in among all health workers, particularly nurses and doctors. When this happens, government will lose the battle and the big beautiful grammar will mean nothing to all of us.

Some people who are not so privy to the structure and functions of health workers are arguing that health workers should stop demanding an all inclusion to the frontline benefits. They don’t understand. There are many health workers who may prefer to stay home to been paid $1m a day.

No amount of money can compensate for life. Life lost is gone forever. The risk from COVID-19 is real. The impact on the health worker is unbearable. We cannot afford to treat them with disdain at this time that we need them most.

Wherever the money will come from, I urge government to rethink and consider paying all clinical health workers actively working on patients the 50% frontline incentives. It is better to win all the health workers than to lose some of them. We can only win all of them by accepting to pay them their due.

The ultimate goal should be how to fight COVID-19 and not how to fight among ourselves. The GMA and GRNMA must not fail their followers at this point. They should show leadership and let government understand that even the 50% is insignificant. They are not requesting for more. Just the 50% for all their members.

The GRNMA particularly should go back to the drawing board and negotiate for better conditions of services for her members. For now, our greatest enemy is COVID-19, not government, not Ghanaians, not members of the health sector.

If one is destined to die by burning, it will be suicidal to oil oneself and sit close to fire. Government has to act and/or react with caution.