Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Special Health Advisor to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed worry about the overfocus on the COVID-19 pandemic to the detriment of other deadly sicknesses in the country claiming more lives faster than the global pandemic.
According to him, since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country, it seems all attention have been given to the novel coronavirus but there are equally other diseases such as; hypertension, kidney disease, breast cancer, cholera, typhoid, pulmonary tuberculosis, HIV among others that are claiming lives at a faster rate.
Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, the former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service alluded to the fact that if care is not taken, due to the excessive attention given to the COVID-19, malaria and hypertension patients will be asked to go for the COVID-19 test before they are treated of their actual illnesses.
“It is not only COVID-19 case we have at the hospitals. What worries me is that it seems all the attention has been given to the virus. If someone is suffering from malaria or hypertension and the person needs to be treated of such illness, you will be told to go for COVID-19 test before you are operated on,” he bemoaned.
He reiterated that inasmuch as it is important to protect Ghanaians from the COVID-19, it is equally significant not to neglect other deadly diseases, stressing that the health workers must be made to work on other illness as well as the COVID-19 in order not to be taken by surprise.
He added that the government is on a discussion table with the health workers in order not to overly focus only on the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving other equally deadly illness to have a tow on the general public.
“If we don’t take care, those who are not supposed to die out of other illness may not survive by the time we are done with the COVID-19,” he indicated.
To him, the whole world is talking about the COVID-19 due to its novelty, hence, the attention dedicated to it.
Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]
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Please focus on the csm in the north .
I'm surprise a man like Dr. Nsiah is pretending he doesn't know why the elite are over focused on COVID. In case he really doesn't know; it's because COVID is the only disease that can kill any of our leaders regardless of his wealth or status in society. This year alone, CSM has killed more Ghanaians than COVID. Malaria has killed more Ghanaians than COVID has, across all of West Africa. At the end of this year, Malaria, filth and poverty will kill far more Ghanaians than COVID could kill even in Europe and America. But for the ruling elite, they've chosen their self-preservation than the overall interest of Ghana. Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown...and let the poor perish
You are right. We are giving this COVID 19 too much attention at the expense of other killer diseases. As we focus on the COVID other diseases are killing people but we have not aggregated them and so we don't see it. Let our Doctors or Health facilities in the country give us those dying out of High BP in and we will see covid comes no where near. It is good to approach it as we are doing but the attention is over.