As the World is alert to the danger of the Infectious Coronavirus, reports are coming in of Health worker maltreatment by sick persons, being quarantined for the Illness.
Philippine Blog, lucisphilippines.press, reports that a Nurse encountered a patient who was having a fever in the hospital and suspected of being infected with the Coronavirus, so she kindly gave him a mask to prevent cross-infection with other patients, saying “There are many sick people in the hospital. Since you are sick and your immune system is weak now so here’s a mask for you to wear to stop you from getting sicker or spreading the illness further”
Suddenly, the man went crazy and threw a fit when she gave him the mask. He shouted at her, “I’m already sick, what’s the use of wearing a mask now?” As if that wasn’t enough, he got up and pulled off the mask from the medical staff’s face to spit at her.
There are also widespread unconfirmed reports of such Doctor and other Health worker assaults such as a Viral post on Asian Social Media Platform Weibo, in which a doctor in Wuhan had a similar experience. Apparently, the doctor said that a patient’s family got angry and tore off the doctor’s protective clothing. They even said, “Why are you wearing protective gear? If I’m going to die then we will all die together!”
Violence among health workers are on the rise worldwide especially in the face of these Infectious Diseases such as the Coronavirus and our Native Lassa Fever which continues to spread (Reports here ), despite attempts by Health workers to isolate and quarantine infected patients.
Targeted attempts at infecting healthworkers with Infectious diseases are despicable and efforts should be put in place to prevent such
