Latest update December 23rd, 2024 2:56 AM
Safeguarding staffers on Infectious Diseases Ward high on GPHC’s agenda
Through its Quality Improvement Department, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) has been seeking to safeguard its workers from infectious diseases, with immense focus being directed to Tuberculosis (TB). This is according to Quality Improvement Manager, Ms Yolanda Renville, who disclosed that all staffers attached to the hospital’s Infectious Diseases Ward are enrolled in a vibrant programme intended to ensure their wellbeing.
Yolanda Renville
This is done in light of the fact that infectious diseases, the likes of TB, are very rampant, Renville disclosed during an interview with this publication. She divulged that the disease, which can be lethal, can be easily transmitted when persons with active TB sneeze, cough or otherwise transmit respiratory fluids through the air.
In fact, according to Renville, who has been a nurse for the past eight years, just about one in four persons fall victim to the disease.
In recognition of the fact that a staffer attached to the Infectious Diseases Ward can be exposed to the disease anywhere, extra precautions are taken to safeguard them in every sphere of their lives.
Currently, the Infectious Diseases Ward is manned around-the-clock by a total of 17 staffers, including doctors, nurses and cleaners, all of whom are subjected to a treatment programme which affords them preventative medicines.
“Each staff member who works on the Infectious Diseases Ward, where TB cases are, we ensure that we give them things like vitamins…they have to be high on vitamins, especially Vitamin C, on a daily basis.”
Added to this, the GPHC also seeks to ensure that the nutritional intake (food) of all staff members on this ward is optimum. These individuals, Renville explained, are required to inform the hospital when their nutritional supplies are depleted. “They are a well taken care of team of people,” disclosed Renville, who insisted that so efficient has been the programme to safeguard staffers that there hasn’t been a single reported instance where a staff member has contracted TB, or any other infectious disease, on the ward.
However, there have been staffers who have contracted TB elsewhere and were required to be relieved of their duties in order to be properly treated.
“If we find a staff member has contracted TB…depending on their condition, sometimes we have to send them home for about nine months and we ensure that they are treated before they come back because TB is curable,” asserted Renville.
“They stay off work until we know that it is safe for them to come back,” stressed the Quality Improvement Manager, even as she explained that this precautionary measure is essential to ensure that no other staff member or patient is exposed.
According to Renville, a similar programme to safeguard patients is also in place at the hospital although efforts are ongoing to enlighten patients that some interactions with other patients and other individuals could prove to be a risky situation as well.
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