United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) in conjunction with the Enugu state ministry of health is training about 100 health workers from various health establishments centers in Enugu for proper handling of COVID-19 cases in the state.
The training which started on 20th of may at the Nike resort hotel Enugu have participants ranging from consultants in all the three isolation and treatment centers to cleaners and is expected to last till 27th 2020.
Ifeyinwa Anyanyo, Health Specialist, UNICEF Enugu Field Office, said the training became necessary following a gap analysis by the State Ministry of Health, for a need to train Health workers on COVID -19 Case Management; Infection, Prevention and Control; as well as Surveillance identified.
This she said resulted in the training of 100 skilled and non skilled health workers pooled from the three Isolation health centers in the state who would be trained in two batches over the week.
According to the Health specialists it is to ensure that every health worker in Enugu state, that has to do with the management of COVID-19 case are properly training to perfectly handle cases of people as it is related to COVID-19.
She was of the opinion that at the end of the training, the capacities of 100 health care workers would be improved and strengthened in the areas of case management, surveillance and Infection prevention and control thereby enabling them to efficiently manage and tackle the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with out been infected or infect other health workers.
One of the resource persons at the training who is a medical Doctor with ESUTH Hospital Eddy Ndibuagu ,who spoke to our correspondent commended UNICEF for not only initiating the training but also fully sponsored the 100 participants,to equip them with the required knowledge to fight the COVID-19 in the state with the aim of reducing to zero case in the state.
Eddy who is also the Enugu state Infection prevention and control Pillar lead, said it was his duty to work hard and ensure that as per the COVID-19, the infection prevention and control would be fully practiced in Enugu state especially among health workers.
He said that the whole idea of the training was to ensure that the health workers don’t have this infection through their day to day work, and of course they do not through their practice let other people who do not have it get it or let visitors to the hospital get it.
” I really thank UNICEF because the people you see,we have 100 participants drawn from both consultants, Hygienist, to cleaners, people who are working in the three functional Isolation and Treatment center of the state, Teaching Hospital, Diagnostic and then Nsukka, these are the people who are in the front line, so if you don’t equip them well with knowledge of don’t and doe’s as it relates to this problem, one of the greatest thing that will happen to us is having our soldiers fallen before we get to the battle field, and that is what will happen if you have health workers get infected “.
He said that the critical mass of the force of the work is to prevent others from getting infected and treat those that get infected and ” that is why I like UNICEF for what they are doing, they are trying to empower the health care workers who are the direct front liners in this, ranging from consultants who are steady on call to cleaners every body should be equipped on how to protect yourself, protect other health care workers and protect visitors by so doing we protect our environment from the pandemic spread “.
The Doctor further stated that the ideas is not only prevention and control but surveillance, for them to know how to identity who a suspect are and take them to facilities early enough , it also about management, it is an encompassing training.
One of the participants who also is a medical doctor, Ikekpeazu Chidi with the ESUTH teaching Hospital expressed joy that the training would help them to improve their level of care, with the patients.
He said the main aim of the training was to eradicate or reduce drastically the level of COVID in Enugu state and Nigeria in general through our attitude saying that if we have good attitude towards Hygiene, toward care of patients the altitude would be high for us.
” basically what we are going to get from here is to have a reproved attitude towards our care for our owns selves in terms of our Hygiene, in terms of the way we behave so that we reduce contamination, of our selves, our patients and to help the general public to reduce the insinuation and misinformation and this is the time we talk about scientific information, time we are talking about solidarity not stigmatisation “.and this is what UNICEF has done basically they are funding every thing here to equip us with the required knowledge to fight the COVID.
