“We use foodstuff vehicles for COVID dead bodies” – Burial team declares indefinite strike

Members of the Environmental Health Officers Alliance-Ghana (EHOA-GH) have bemoaned the lack of logistics forcing them to use foodstuff vehicles to convey dead bodies of COVID-19 victims, hence their nationwide strike.

Numbering over 7000, the health workers have also complained about inadequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including disinfectants, disposable gloves, and gowns.

The group in charge of burying persons who died through COVID-19 infections laid down their tools on Wednesday, August 18, 2021.

“We are using private hearse, and the unfortunate thing for us is that when the hearse is unavailable, we are forced to use ordinary vehicles, the long (KIA) trucks, which convey tomatoes and plantain from the villages to Accra. That is what we use in conveying the coffin of COVID-19 dead bodies, and any other bodies,” President of EHOA-GH, Yaw Akwaa Lartey said.

He was concerned that the health workers were contracting COVID-19 due to the situation; hence he communicated the decision to suspend operations “until the government provides equipment”.

According to him, the government was only interested in providing the necessary logistics for the Ministry of Health, nurses and doctors, but they have been “neglected” and left “to the mercy of possible Covid-19 infections from the dead bodies we bury.”

He said this in an engagement with the media on Wednesday, August 18, in the Ashanti Region.

He explained that the government had failed to provide them “with the needed resources for us to be able to discharge our duties.”

The president of the group emphasized they would not resume work until the government intervenes.

According to him, several letters to the Minister of Health (MoH), the Ministry of Local Government, and the COVID-19 response team since May 2020 yielded no results hence the latest action.

He warned the incident could affect the fight against the pandemic and asked the government to urgently attend to their request to avert any escalation in the country’s COVID-19 situation.

COVID-19 cases on the rise

The indefinite strike of the health professionals comes amidst a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country.

At least 524 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed by the Ghana Health Service (GHS), pushing the country’s active cases to 6,265 as of 14 August  2021.

The death toll has hit 945 after 15 additional fatalities were recorded across the country, an update on the GHS COVID-19 dashboard reveals.

The data provided by GHS shows that the country’s total confirmed cases stand at 112,378. Currently, health officials have recorded 105,168 recoveries.

So far, 128 persons are in severe condition, while 51 remain critical, according to GHS. Cases detected at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) are 2,523 with 2,361 recoveries.

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