WE MUST NOT SLEEP-WALK INTO ANOTHER COVID-COMBATING CRISIS

Everywhere in the world today, the hand of death is forcing people to think more deeply than hitherto. 

In Britain, for instance, the Government the reliance of the Johnson Government on a group of powerful scientists to advise it on how to manage the Covid-19 crisis was questioned pretty early during the crisis. 

For it was soon recognised that Covid-19 is not simply a medical emergency, and that methods to combat it would fall short if a wider array of specialist knowledge – including knowledge of how the British social system works – was not used. 

The advisory body responsible for guiding the UK government is known as SAGE – the “Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.” The group comprised 21 scientists and two political advisers to Downing Street. But, as an article in the London Guardian newspaper commented, “ When we look at the range of expertise among these scientists, we see that SAGE is heavily skewed towards the medical sciences. This may come as no surprise, given COVID-19’s impact on human health…. But when we look at the broader picture, an advisory group skewed overwhelmingly towards medicine is a cause for worry.”

Two basic facts emerged to confirm that the Guardian’s worries were not unfounded: UK deaths from Covid-19 have totalled

103,000 so far, from 3.74Million Cases. Only 28,680 people affected by Covid have recovered, according to figures available on 28 January 2021.

Medical science “had helped to save countless lives….. But pandemics are not simply medical phenomena”, argued one expert. 

He was right to say this, because, in the UK, mistakes were made about the treatment of front-line workers to whom Personal Protection Equipment ought to have been provided as a matter of course, but were not. 

Now, many of these front-line workers were from Britain’s ethnic minorities, who are vastly under-represented on the boards and institutions that make decisions regarding all aspects of social welfare in the UK. 

The result? People from minority ethnic groups were dying far in excess of what should have been expected from the proportion they constituted of the UK population.

As early as May 2020, the London  Guardian pointed out that it was clear that Black and Ethnic Minority (BAME) workers formed “more than six in 10” of the victims of Covid. An analysis, looking at staff in hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes and other settings, found that of the dead, “61% of the total,were from an ethnic minority background….”

Of those staff whose backgrounds could be identified, Asian workers accounted for 34% of the overall death toll, black staff 24%, and white workers 36%.”

These figures automatically led to queries as to (a) who decided which health workers should get personal protection equipment? (b) Who decided which health workers should be assigned to which wards in UK hospitals? And (c) If the Government’s anti-Covid campaign experts had included BAME experts, especially sociologists and psychologists, would the disproportionate number of BAME deaths have been more quickly detected? 

Just imagine what sort of panic was suffered by BAME families, members of which were front-line health workers, as these figures became known and the subject of radio and TV reports. 

I recall these facts because I think we in Ghana, too, are about to allow our own medical personnel, without the advice of social scientists, to lead us into trouble. The latest Ministry of Health announcement to the public says that the Ministry “has decided that public laboratories should not charge sick patients for Covid-19 tests.”

In a letter dated January 27, 2021, and addressed to all COVID-19 testing laboratories, the MoH said all walk-in requests, such as people reporting ill health, or effecting contact tracing, “must be done free-of-charge using public health resources.”

The announcement added that the Ministry had decided that “Public Covid-19 testing laboratories providing walk-in services can charge only travellersfor testing”.

This is excellent news, but I am worried because it does not appear that the Ministry of Health has fully anticipated the potential chaos that can result from this announcement. Ghanaian society is of such a nature that whenever a free service is offered without adequate preparation beforehand, over-subscription of the service renders it incapable of achieving its humanitarian] objectives.

We know for a fact that at the beginning of the Covid crisis and the imposition of the “knock-down”, the Government tried to offer free food to members of the the populace who would be challenged when trying to tap their normal food sources. What happened? Near-riots broke out in many places, and the attempt at relieving public pain was abruptly ended end.

We must therefore ask the Ministry of Health: have you, please, supplied all the accredited laboratories with the necessary equipment and personnel that will prevent them from being overwhelmed by members of the public who might suspect that their symptoms might be indicative of a Covid-19 attack? 

Has the Ministry pre-planned, with the accredited laboratories, the modus of receiving and recording test requests (either by telephone and on the spot) so as to establish a fair queuing system for tests? 

Meanwhile, here is a list of the accredited “National Public Health Laboratories:

Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research; Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research; Veterinary Services Department – Labone (Accra); Veterinary Services Department – Takoradi; Public Health Reference Laboratory – Tamale;

Public Health Reference Laboratory – SekondiTakoradi;

University Health And Allied Sciences Laboratory – Ho;MDS-LANCET – East Legon;

Nyaho Diagnostic Laboratory- Accra;

Akai House Laboratory- Accra; Council For Scientific And Industrial Research – Accra;

LEDing Medical Laboratory;

The Trust Hospital Company Ltd; and Synlab Ghana.

The best of luck to all of us!

By CAMERON DUODU