Public Health Workers

Apr 06, 2020 Editorial

We need them more than ever. If the caring
ones were to reciprocate unprofessionally
and vindictively, then those who come fearfully could be in a place of no return. We must not shun them, not lock them out, not ostracize them at this roughest of times. We need our healthcare workers and, so, we must not convert those on the frontlines of our defensive measures into the scorned and feared.
Healthcare workers do not have days off at this time. They cannot take emergency leave. They have to turn up at work and face the fires and challenges that come from being at work and on the job tending to those who come, including those who may have the dreaded sickness. They are sure to have their own misgivings and fears, and their fears are multiples of what we may have, since they are saddled with being in the center of the crucibles that daunt. Their brethren in the United States and Europe are besieged and exposed. And though having comparatively more protective gear and more fallback facilities at their disposal, they still fear the risk of contamination. But they still show up and sacrifice for the better of those who come calling. Our nurses and other healthcare professionals here are doing the same.
If they can do so under very demanding conditions, a nationally challenging situation, then we, too, must rise up and do our little parts. Most nurses do not have their own vehicles, so they are dependent upon the good graces of our public transportation network of buses and taxis, if the luxury of the latter can be managed.
As the caretaker Minister of Public Health urged, let us not single them out or lock them out. The professionals in them, and the particular watchful standards employed today, would necessitate that the required precautions are taken on coming into medical facilities and also when leaving them.
If not, the risk of self-infection and the health of family could be impacted for the worse.Public Health Workers
Come to think of it, if the arbitrary and unhelpful is the lot of healthcare workers, then the real likelihood of the same being extended to others is also a distinct possibility, with little by way anything to check what could lead to widespread paranoia and the panics that accompany such.
For this could include those who have to come out of their homes and mingle or tend to the public throughout the day.
It does not stop at nurses who would know what to do and would have taken serious efforts at safeguarding themselves, but now encircles those in the wide open market places, almost always congested; those sometimes brushing shoulders with unknown citizens with any manner of the unknown trailing from their respiration; and those who are either uncaring or unwise to do the things that could make them less of a carrier or less of a receptor.
There is one common denominator in those segments identified, which any self-respecting medical organisation, or self-protection healthcare worker, would either be irresponsible to not have introduced and enforced for the benefit of patients who come, workers who serve, and entities looking out for their interests. It is that they do what must be done, if only for purposes of continuity.
Some sections of the general population are doing what they have been told to do, and what they can do, their own circumstances considered.
But many others cannot. It was suspected and now known that pensioners, due to their own tight financial situations, do not have such luxuries, are unable to entertain such considerations and necessary precautions.
They have to come and cluster. There is no choice for them. Yet, there is not much by way of suspicion nor fear with receiving them in the midst, and this is even when, because of age and different risk factors that make them vulnerable, they are more prone to catch and carry this illness. There have been no reports or concerns that pensioners and others are being targeted.
For all these reasons, it makes no sense and is counterintuitive to single out health professionals for different treatment. We pray for them.

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