By Kofoworola Belo-Osagie
A group, CovidNigeriaMedics (CNM), comprising health workers home and abroad, has distributed over 10,000 face shields to hospitals in various parts of the country badly hit by the coronavirus disease.
The group began raising funds for the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) in March to protect health workers who were getting infected because they lacked PPE.
The face shields were presented to the state chapters of the Nigerian Medical Association, National Association for Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, among others, for distribution to health workers in the frontlines of the pandemic.
In a statement by Dr. Ona Utuama on behalf of steering committee of CovidNigeriaMedics, the group expressed concern that the number of COVID-19 cases jumped by about 23,000 within a 55-day period. It promised to continue to provide PPE to protect health workers.
“On May 5, 2020, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had reported 2,950 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria.
On this same day, CovidNigeriaMedics’ (CNM) first batch of locally-made 1,000 face shields was delivered to doctors and nurses in hard-hit Kano State.
Almost 55 days later, on June 30, 2020, the total number of cases in the country increased to a whopping 25,694.
“CovidNigeriaMedics, a group of concerned and committed Nigerian health workers at home and in the Diaspora, has remained relentless in volunteering time and resources to curb the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria through the provision of PPEs.
“Being frontline workers, they understand the gravity of this 10-fold increase, as we and our colleagues are at risk of COVID-19 while providing care.
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To this end, we have donated 10,000 face shields across the nation to the 36 states with pending deliveries to Ebonyi, Niger, Delta, Enugu, Benue, Abia, Kogi.
As long as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on Nigerians and health workers, we will continue to put into practice our slogan ‘Together we stand with health workers.”
The group also plans to provide face shields and masks to health and other frontline workers. It called on organisations and members of the public to support the project with funds.
“As we wrap up our first round of distribution to all the states and focus our attention to the 21 hardest hit local government areas (LGAs), we call on corporate organisations and individuals to join us in safeguarding our health workers and workforce from COVID-19.
As the lockdown is being eased nationwide, the country’s medical and public health response must be fortified to prevent a further increase in the number of infected health workers recently stated by NCDC to be 812.
We hope that our increase in production/donation will help to alleviate health workers anxieties associated with limited PPEs,’’ he said.
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