A 54-year-old nurse with the Ghana Manganese Company (GMC) Hospital at Nsuta, Western Region, has died of COVID-19, a statement from the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association has said.  

The hypertensive nurse in charge of pre-triaging and screening of patients.

She reported sick on 6 May 2020, went home and later returned to the facility with symptoms suspected to be COVID-19.

“She was admitted to the hospital to be managed and her samples taken but before the results came, she passed away on the night of 8 May 2020. However, the result came out positive for COVID-19”, the GRNMW said.

Just last week, the national president of GRNMW, Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, revealed that some 32 Ghanaian nurses and midwives were down with COVID-19 while hundreds of their colleagues had also been quarantined following exposure to the virus.

“At the moment, we have 32 nurses and midwives who have been infected by the coronavirus”, she told ABC News, adding: “We have over 250 under quarantine. They are being managed at different levels. Some of them are at the treatment centres. For those under quarantine, some are at home, some are in guest houses and hotels, and so on”.

“We are reaching out to them and we hope that things will get better,” she said.

She also noted that a potpourri of issues is affecting their efforts at fighting the virus.

“The challenges we are facing is that we don’t have adequate PPE and we hope that we would get the equipment we need to protect ourselves and the patients and clients we take care of,” Mrs Ofori-Ampofo said.

“Government runs its government, we run our union and we know what our members are going through. Once we don’t have adequate PPE we are still battling with low salaries and so on, those are big issues that need to be addressed. There are those sitting at home waiting to be employed and those working without allowances,” she added.