Pajule health workers protest over lack of protective gear

Health workers at Pajule Health Centre IV in Pajule Sub-county, Pader District, on Monday locked the facility’s gates and laid down their tools in protest over lack of personal protective gear at the facility.
The health centre is the district’s biggest medical facility that serves the biggest number of patients as far as basic medical and HIV/Aids services are concerned.

This newspaper has established that a consignment of hand gloves and face masks was last delivered at the facility in February, and health workers at the facility have been operating without such equipment since March when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown in a bid to fight the spread of the deadly Covid-19 disease.
“For two months now, we have been begging masks and gloves from other smaller health facilities in the district to help us work but that has ceased to be sustainable since every facility is facing scarcity now,” a health worker at the facility, who requested not to be identified, told Daily Monitor.

“Time came when we conditioned patients to buy masks for us to work on them but the price has risen from Shs500 a pair to now Shs3,000,” she added.
Mr Brilliant Okello Tito, the Pajule Sub-county chairperson, told Daily Monitor that their attempts to convince the health workers to resume work were futile.
“They told me their lives were at risk and were not willing to continue with the work unless personal protective gears are availed to the facility, and I advised them to keep within the facility as they protested,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Celestino Layoo, the Pader District health officer, has said the protest greatly affected services at the outpatient unit of the facility.
“By yesterday [Sunday], there was no single glove or face masks for them to use. Even the few we borrowed from other health facilities were used up and this puts the lives of these health workers at risk during this Covid-19 pandemic,” Dr Layoo said.
According to him, the shortage resulted from delays by the National Medical Stores (NMS) to deliver supplies to the facility.

“We quickly convened a consultative taskforce meeting yesterday and we have taken the little package of personal protective gear for coronavirus management we had at the district there so that work can resume before NMS delivers,” he added.