The MP at the bedside of child victim at the hospital
The outbreak of cholera in the Greater Accra Region is gradually becoming an epidemic, as official figures indicate that about 2,000 people have contracted the disease within one week.
Approximately 20 people have been reported killed by the acute oral diarrhoeal illness within the same period.
The disease’s outbreak was recorded about two months ago, and since then has been rapidly spreading across the Greater Accra Region, re-enacting the 2011 outbreak that recorded over 10,000 cases, a situation that earned Ghana a World Health Organisation’s (WHO) ranking as the fifth most cholera endemic country in the world.
The cholera outbreak has been blamed on the Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s (AMA) failure in its oversight responsibility for waste disposal in the capital city.
Several health facilities in Accra have been overwhelmed by the outbreak, as health facilities are forced to construct makeshift wards for their cholera patients.
Meanwhile, 180 cases of cholera reported in the past week at the Achimota Hospital in Accra have overwhelmed health workers at the facility who are working feverishly to prevent further deaths after two people died of the disease at the hospital within the week.
The makeshift male ward is overcrowded with victims as nurses work round the clock to save lives with more cases being reported to the facility on daily basis.
Most of the victims which include children are coming from the Akweteyman and Achimota areas of the Okaikwei Sub-Metro District with the rest coming from other parts of northern Accra.
These were made known to the Member of Parliament (MP) for Okaikwei North, Elizabeth Sackey, in whose constituency the hospital is located when she paid an unexpected visit to the facility on Monday to ascertain how prepared health workers are to contain the outbreak of the disease in the national capital which she described as very alarming and worrying.
The Deputy Director of Nursing Services at the hospital, Agnes Cudjoe, told the MP that the number of cases recorded on Friday, August 1 was very overwhelming putting a lot of pressure on nurses at the hospital.
“With the limited facilities we have at the hospital which serve most part of Accra North, we have been able to contain the situation with most of the patients responding well to treatment,” she said, adding that those who died as a result of the disease were people who did not report early to the hospital for treatment.
“People will need to eat very warm food and also thoroughly wash fresh vegetables like cabbage and carrots before eating them to avoid contracting the disease,” she said
“We are being consumed by filth all over our cities and towns and the earlier we did something about it, the better it will be for the health of the people whose productivity could greatly be affected by this outbreak,” the MP noted.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr
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