NEHAWU statement on rising number of healthcare workers getting infected with Covid-19
18 April 2020
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] is deeply concerned about the growing number of frontline healthcare workers who are getting infected with COVID-19 while on duty.
Recently, we have observed an upsurge in the number of healthcare workers who have been exposed to the virus. News of workers getting infected have been hogging news headlines for the past couple of days. Private healthcare providers are the biggest culprits in failing to put proactive measures to protect workers from contracting the virus while in the frontline of actively fighting the virus. This includes hospitals like Mediclinic Morningside, Netcare Kingsway, St Augustine and recently Netcare Pholoso in Polokwane.
NEHAWU has been very tenacious in emphasising the need to protect and defend healthcare workers who are our first line of defence against the virus. We have pointed out on numerous occasions the dangers of lack of adequate Personal Protective Equipment [PPE’s], training on the proper use of PPE’s by healthcare workers and general education on how to deal with the virus. Our efforts include going to court to compel the National Department of Health, the provincial health departments and the Department of Employment and Labour to protect our members and workers from contracting the virus in their workplaces.
We have been engaged in an extensive awareness campaign in the form of posters and other social media material to educate our members, workers and the general public on how to mitigate the dangers of the virus. However, this still requires a broader collective effort from all sectors of our society to decisively deal with the spread of the virus. In this regard, the national union proposes the following as an urgent intervention to protect healthcare workers: