The Zimbabwe Association for Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) has demanded that health workers in both the public and private sectors should be given personal protective equipment (PPE) in line with a recent Supreme Court ruling.
Posting on Twitter, ZADHR asserted that the continued exposure of health workers to COVID-19 due to the absence of PPE is illegal. ZADHR said:
COVID-19 #Case27 shows why the government MUST URGENTLY implement the HIGH COURT ruling on the provision of PPE to health workers.
Therefore the continued exposure of health workers to COVID-19 due to absence of PPE is in violation of the law.
ZADHR calls upon all health institutions (private and public) to URGENTLY institute measures that protect health workers from COVID-19.
Special treatment of politically connected patients must not violate screening and infection control measures in hospitals and ports of entry.
ZADHR will soon approach the courts to seek URGENT enforcement of the High Court order.
Health workers must be protected!
COVID-19 Case #27 is of a Mhondoro woman who passed away on 21 April at Westend Hospital in Harare, with reports claiming that nurses were misled into believing that she had pneumonia, thus exposing them and their families to the coronavirus.