Executive director of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), Dr Peter Yeboah has reiterated that the best expression of condolences to members it has lost to COVID is to work harder to protect the vulnerable who have no idea COVID -19 is real.
He was paying tribute to some frontline health workers who lost their lives to the COVID-19 infection at the opening of a three-day Training-of-Trainers (ToT) workshop on COVID-19 case management in Sunyani.
“The best expression of condolences is to work harder to protect everyone first among us, the vulnerable communities who are still exposed and have no idea that COVID is real to the disease.” he said.
While paying tribute, he expressed his profound appreciation for all health workers especially those under the CHAG for their immense sacrifices and efforts even when the nation was under lockdown and infections spreading among some staff.
“when the COVID response was all time high, the country was under lockdown, when there was so much fixation at the epicenters you continue to be at the frontline sustaining the continuity of care, putting yourself in harm’s way. You deserve more appreciation, thanks to your resilience and perseverance” he cheered.
Dr Peter Yeboah underscored the need to make the covid-19 response an everyone’s responsibility and tasked all participants to recognize that a lot still remains unknown. He added that it was important to consolidate gains made so far to avoid any further spread or new waves of the infection considering the growing level of fatigue
He indicated that one of the efforts been harnessed by CHAG is the strengthening of its partnership with institutions such as the MOH and the GHS to implement the CRIB project with support from DFID.
“CHAG was tasked with the responsibility to complement governments response to covid-19 outbreak, and while consolidating the gains, there still gaps, in terms of case management, testing, surveillance, risk communications, cluster of infections that needs to be addressed”, he mentioned.
The trainer of trainers was the second in edition since the roll out of the CRIB project.
The workshop was organised by the Christian Health Association of Ghana in collaboration with the National COVID-19 case management team, the Ghana Health Service, with financial support from the Federal Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO).
Participants who were drawn from some 40 districts across the country and will be taken through relevant topics such as infection prevention control, screening and triaging, surveillance and contact tracing, health worker safety, cordination and team dynamics, psychosocial support, case management of mild, moderate and sever cases, home based care, and burial of the dead.
It forms part of CHAGs efforts to assist the national response to covid-19 by expanding testing, case management and contact tracing to the district, sub-district and community levels using 40 CHAG facilities that act as district hospitals and are designated as COVID-19 treatment centres across the country.
It involves additional 1,600 facilities which will be strengthened to undertake screening and triaging with 400 CHPS zones supported to undertake case findings and surveillance. We are taking opportunity of this situation to equally strengthen health systems for church-based facilities to become more resilient to respond to existing and emerging health conditions.