Ebola: Catholic diocese bars corpses in churches while health workers flee hospital.

The Catholic diocese of Makurdi, Benue,Nigeria, has barred the faithful from taking corpses of late relations to churches for funeral Mass as a measure to check the spread of Ebola virus.

The diocese directed that corpses of deceased members should be given immediate burial.
It, however, said that it would allow corpses to be brought to the churches in the area only when death certificates issued by relevant medical authorities were produced.
This is contained in a statement by the Director of Communications in the diocese, Rev. Fr. Moses Iorapuu, in Makurdi on Saturday.
The statement, which was issued on behalf of Bishop of the diocese, Very Rev. Athanissius Usu, also announced changes in two aspects of activities during mass, including the mode of administering the Holy Communion.
According to the statement, parishioners will henceforth be served the eucharistic feast on their hands as against the practice of putting it on their tongue by the priest.
Also, it said, the exchange of the sign of peace, involving handshakes has been replaced with other suitable gestures to avoid the possibilities of contacting the Ebola virus.
The diocese advised priests, who conduct pastoral visitation to hospitals to be cautious and seek doctor’s permission before touching sick people with undisclosed illnesses.
It also announced the prohibition of group prayer sessions that involved touching and praying over unknown sicknesses.
According to the statement, the measures, which are in accordance with Federal Government’s directive on ways to prevent the spread of Ebola virus, are aimed at safeguarding the health of members.
“We hope that with these preventive pastoral and standard procedures and with prayers and steadfastness in responsible behaviours, the Lord will keep this virus away from us.

JIDE  IDRIS,LAGOS STATE COMMISSIONER FOR HEALTH.

Meanwhile, health workers at the Yaba Mainland Hospital, Lagos have been running away from patients isolated in the hospital, thus putting intense pressure on the few ones still treating victims.

Impeccable sources at the hospital told Saturday PUNCH that health workers in the hospital were also being pressured by family members to resign their appointments with the establishment.

Some of them are already avoiding the patients like a plague. As a result of this development, hospital sources said the few health workers available have been working for 24 hours in order to take care of patients in the isolated area.

Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, told some of our correspondents in Lagos on Wednesday that people in the isolation ward could die if they were not well managed, adding that government needed more hands.

Identifying lack of adequate health officials as a major challenge to containing the spread of the virus, he said, “Because of the fear of Ebola, everybody seems to be scared, nobody wants to assist, which is a major challenge.

“It is even more so for the treatment isolation ward. It’s a major problem because a lot of people ran away, especially when the nurse died.”

One of the senior medical practitioners in the hospital confided in one of our correspondents that his family members who currently reside abroad had been putting pressure on him to resign his appointment to prevent him from contracting the deadly virus.

He also said that the doctors’ strike had been putting pressure on the available personnel to work more than the mandatory eight hours.

He said, “The pressure is too much for us; we have been working for 24 hours instead of the statutory eight hours because of inadequate manpower as a result of the ongoing doctors’ strike and other health workers that have been reluctant to move near the patients.”

He said, “We have been relying on volunteers who have been helping us to carry out some of our responsibilities here. Our family members too have been panicking and putting pressure on us as a result of our insistence to continue to manage the carriers of Ebola virus; they are nursing the fear that we may contract the disease as many of them have insisted that we resign our appointments.

“One major aspect of the issue is the stigmatisation. Our neighbours have also been stigmatising us; they believe that because of the fact that Ebola patients are being managed here, they think we might have contracted the virus.”

He said the efforts to prevent the spread would have been completely defeated if not for some volunteers who had been assisting in managing those infected with the Ebola virus.

The senior health worker, who likened the challenge to a war situation in which reserved soldiers were mobilised to participate in fierce battle, said that it would require effective and co-ordinated effort to manage the patients as well as prevent the spread of the virus.

The senior health worker, however, recalled that some hospitals had been misdiagnosing patients suffering from severe malarial as contracting Ebola virus.

He particularly mentioned the case of a malarial patient who was referred to the Mainland Hospital by another hospital on the suspicion that he had contracted the Ebola virus.

He said, “Immediately the malaria patient was brought here on the suspicion that he had contracted Ebola virus, we treated him for three hours after which he requested for eba (Garri). The following day, the boy ate rice and plantain before we discharged him.”

Though he said the Lagos State Government had provided every necessary support to prevent the outbreak of the virus, one of our correspondents noticed that water was still a major problem at the Mainland Hospital as some junior workers were seen during a visit to the hospital carrying buckets filled with water from one location to another.

The workers were also seen wearing protective face masks.

The Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association and the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, last Sunday, accused the Federal Government of not being proactive enough in the fight against the virus.

They said the government had yet to put in place adequate measures to protect health workers willing to manage those infected.

The state NMA Chairman, Dr. Tope Ojo, asked the federal and Lagos State governments to provide protective kits and address the issue of hazard allowance for doctors, nurses and other health workers willing to be involved in treating infected persons.

He had said, “You don’t just dangle life insurance without documents. We cannot endanger our lives unless we know what is at stake. We should be assured that should anything happen to us, our families are catered for.”

The NMA Secretary-General, Dr. Adewunmi Alayaki, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH in Abuja on Wednesday, expressed concern about the delay in releasing details of the insurance policy the Federal Government health workers treating Ebola patients.

Alayaki said, “Government has promised to insure health workers taking care of the patients, but details have not been released. We are expecting details of the policy.”

Alayaki spoke just as residents of Kuje, a satellite town in Abuja, reiterated their opposition to the siting of Ebola treatment centre in the community.

Some youths have threatened to burn the centre if it is located in the community.

Assessing efforts to check the spread of the disease, Alayaki hailed the Federal and Lagos State governments, but asked them to ensure that doctors and other health workers treating Ebola patients were well protected.

A Sierra Leonean doctor, Sheik Umar Khan, was reported to have died, after contracting the disease, despite wearing a protective gear while treating Ebola patients.

The World Health Organisation recommends the use of personal protective equipment by health workers and caregivers attending to Ebola patients.

The disease can be transmitted through contact with blood and body fluids of infected individuals and with objects contaminated with the fluids.

Meanwhile, there is panic in Kuje following the decision of the government to manage Ebola patients at the Kuje General Hospital.

The Federal Capital Territory Administration had on Monday designated the male ward of the hospital as the isolation centre to manage Ebola cases in the city.

It also set up a technical committee on Ebola management headed by the FCTA Secretary for Health and Human Services, Dr. Demola Onakomaiya.

Investigations, however, indicated that health workers in the hospital feared that managing Ebola cases in the facility might expose them to the virus.

It was learnt that some youths had threatened to burn the facility, if the FCTA transferred Ebola patients to Kuje General Hospital.

Residents of the town, who spoke with one of our correspondents, described the decision to use the male ward of the hospital to manage Ebola patients as heartless.

Meanwhile, Oyo State has instituted 24-hour surveillance monitoring and tracking of suspected cases in all the 33 local government areas of the state.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, said emphasis had been placed on the border regions of Saki West, Iwajowa, Atisbo and Itesiwaju council areas to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus into the state.

Pandemonium broke out last Sunday at Udo community in Ovia South-West Local Government Area of Edo State when a man suddenly slumped and died creating panic among residents that the man might have died of the Ebola virus disease.

But the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Louis Odion, said in a statement made available to journalists that examined samples from the man’s body showed that he died as a result of bleeding from peptic ulcer.