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Rights group, Amnesty International, has called on the Nigerian Government to ensure it provides health workers in the frontline of COVID-19 response with Personal Protective Equipment they need to attend to patients. 

The call follows an announcement by government that 40 health workers tested positive for COVID-19 in Nigeria.

In a statement on Friday by Osai Ojigho, Director Amnesty International Nigeria, the group said health workers risked being exposed to COVID-19, stigmatisation, separation from their families, mental health and other concerns. 

The statement reads, “Across Nigeria, health workers are facing extremely difficult and unsafe conditions of work, such as shortages of personal protective equipment, dilapidated and overstretched health facilities, unfair remuneration and harassment by security forces. 

“Health workers have been describing the difficulties they face and the danger they confront to secure the health and lives of people in Nigeria. What the government must guarantee is their protection. It is unacceptable that they continue to be put at risk.”

Amnesty International said it interviewed some health workers, who raised concerns that they were working without adequate protection and in very difficult conditions.

Health workers are increasingly facing harassment from securities agents despite being granted exemption from the lockdown order as essential workers. 

In April, doctors at the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba, Delta State, embarked on a strike over the harassment of health workers by security agents, the group said.

It called on the Nigerian Government to protect health workers and ensure the treatment of those already infected. 
 

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