Madina Rahman, Dep. Min of Health
By Crispina Cummings
The newly-appointed deputy health minister has lamented the "inexperience" of nurses in handling the current Ebola outbreak, suggesting that “nurses need to be re-educated in infection and prevention control”.
Madina Rahman, who was responding to questions on her recent appointment in parliament, argued that the lack of experience among health workers had made it difficult to combat the disease.
“Sometimes these nurses, having gloves on and coming out of the wards, respond to calls through their mobile phones without proper hand cleansing”, she claimed, adding that that had caused the death of many nurses.
Rahman informed the committee that her ministry had trained senior nurses who would in turn be charged with the responsibility of training other nurses. She said those senior nurses would also be at health centres on a 24/7 basis to serve as nursing police.
“They will make sure that proper infection and prevention controls are adhered to at all times”, she said, adding that as a professional nurse herself, she had taught nursing in America for over 20 years.
Madina said she had served as a health care consultant in Sierra Leone, overseeing nine hospitals in the Western Area and that with all that experience she was not new to the health problems of Sierra Leone.
She recalled that some three months back she approached the health ministry to help with tuition fees for nursing students as a way of motivating them.
(C) Politico 09/09/14
