The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwifery Association has revealed that 288 of its members are currently under mandatory quarantine after being exposed to the disease.

According to the Association’s General Secretary, another 41 nurses and midwives across the country have tested positive cases for Covid-19 with one death.

David Tenkorang-Twum who was speaking on NewsNite Wednesday, described this as worrying since the health workers assisting the country to fight this virus continue to get infected.

He stated that the cases were all recorded at peripheral health facilities where asymptomatic patients infected the health workers.

“For this disease, someone can carry asymptomatically so the nurse or midwife who has no idea about the person you are dealing with, being positive or negative is more at risk to the one who knows.

“So right from the onset, knowing the job of a nurse or midwife, we [the Association] made it clear to government to that the risk is shared but people argued that only those at the Covid-19 treatment centres who have high risk,” he said.

He said, “This startling statistics that we have right now attest to the points we were stating initially.”

For the General Secretary, every health worker is at risk when it comes to coronavirus, hence government should not focus solely working at the isolation centres.

Mr Tenkorang-Twum noted that the steady rise of infection amongst frontline health workers needs to be addressed thus, adequate Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) must be given to all health facility.

“We believe that government has the responsibility of providing the necessary logistics in terms of PPEs and not focusing on the treatment centre but the decentralising the items to even the peripheries, because people will show up anyway and we cannot say that we will not attend to patients.

“And people will come with different kinds of ailments but by the time you say jack, you coul have contracted the disease. But we are also speaking to our members to practice the safety protocols

The General Secretary of Ghana Medical Association called on government to enact a policy where patients do not go to the hospital without calling the doctor.

He believes this will prevent health workers from getting infected.