By Joyce Gathu

In hospital corridors, its common to see nurses running up and down attending to patients within an inch of death. Some patients have such gory wounds — they send chills down your spine.

But for this health workers, this are regular scenes and they will react swiflty to save a life not minding the bloody stains left on their uniform.

In the line of duty, they come into contact with scores of illnesses, some highly contagious, but their business is to save life.

Has it ever crossed your mind that their work constantly predisposes them to multiple diseases, a good number of them even fatal, in order to save your life?

Under the International Labour Organisation, the Government has an obligation to guarantee the safety of health workers in public facilities. However, a majority continue to work under vulnerable conditions, frequently exposing themselves to deadly, infectious diseases.

“While all health workers, nurses included, are supposed to be vaccinated against meningitis, cholera, Hepatitis B and pneumonia, most the Government facilities do not offer them,” Lucia Buyanza, a senior official of the National Nurses Association of Kenya (Nnak) says.

Only health workers who can afford the exorbitant costs of vaccination in private hospitals, receive this crucial immunisations.

This leaves out another significantly large number of health care workers at risk.
“The vaccines cost between Sh1,000 and Sh15,000. However, this is beyond the reach of a majority of health workers whose medical allowances remain sparingly low at Sh3,850, while the risk allowance stands at Sh5,000. This is not enough to buy the vaccines,” explains Buyanza during an interview with My Health.

Further, she notes that there are occasions where nurses are forced to improvise basic supplies such as gloves due to stock-outs.

Buyanza says that there are still no clear mechanisms to protect health workers from the bacteria and viruses that they battle with on a daily basis, in pursuit of public health and welfare.

She observes that one area where attention has been paid to, is the area of HIV and Aids.

prevention
“Post-exposure prophylaxis (Pep) vaccine is readily available in hospitals and health workers who report injuries when handling Aids patients get immediate attention,” she says.
Pep is supposed to be offered immediately after exposure to a disease-causing virus, in this case HIV, in order to prevent transmission of the disease.

Concerns over lack of implementation of guidelines, aimed at protecting health workers are further expressed by Dr Mercy Njuguna, a medical and regulatory manager at Sanofi Pasteur.

Dr Njuguna points out that although health care workers are at risk of Hepatitis B virus infection due to professional exposure, there are no indications that they have been targeted for routine vaccination.

“In a study conducted by Sanofi Pasteur in 2006, only 12.8 per cent of health workers in the country had received vaccination previously despite revelations that 30 per cent of them had reported one or more needle stick injuries in one year,” she says.

Further, Dr Njuguna laments that Hepatitis B dose is absent in the National Programme and should be introduced in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) requirements, which stipulates that all infants should receive their first dose of Hepatitis B vaccine as soon as possible after birth.

Dr Njuguna says that Hepatitis B Vaccination in health care workers is important to prevent professional risk, and should be incorporated as part of routine vaccination programmes.
She also says that countries which have seen marked reduction in their cases of liver problems have done so through successful implementation of vaccination in all high risk groups that include infants, health care workers, people with multiple sexual partners and travellers in high endemic areas.

Vaccination
In Kenya vaccination for the last ten years has targeted only infants from six weeks of age while adolescents and health care workers remain poorly targeted.

“It is against this backdrop that the condition of the Kenyan nurse is clearly revealed. Everyday, they put on their uniform to face the unknown, the possibility that they may walk home having picked a deadly virus,” explains Julius Ng’ang’a, a Law student at the University of Nairobi.

This shows that the general scenario is wanting, as scores of health workers continue to contend with poor working conditions.