Front Line health Workers’ (FLWs) perceptions and opinions on their personal safety while attending suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh

“If I die, what good would this reward do to me or my family? Rather government should spend this money to keep us safe… We don’t need a reward. Just a little praise, encouragement is what we need. ….”

- Physician (male)

“…I am always terrified. Thinking about physical hazard is a mental health hazard, too.”

- Physician (Female)

“ We, the nurses always remain on duty, what we will do with the money if we die”

- Nurse (female)

“I am always scared nowadays. Scared of my family and relatives. We handle different types of patients, so we can be infected and ultimately the whole family will suffer.”

- (Female_54_FWV)

From the identification of the first COVID-19 case in 8 Mar. 2020, the issue that came up at the top of agenda is the lack of supplies and logistics for containment of the COVID-19 situation. These included, but not limited to, dearth of test kits and small number of testing, monopolizing the tests to a single govt. instruction, earmarking facilities to screen and quarantine suspected COVID-19 patients, service readiness of the testing laboratories and the hospitals including resourcing the hospitals with adequate number of ICUs and ventilators etc. However, the most important issue under media scrutiny became the availability of, and the quality of, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the frontline health workers such as the doctors, nurses, technicians and supporting staff.

This quick telephone survey is done to elicit the perceptions of the FLWs regarding personal safety against contracting the infection when attending suspected/confirmed COVID-19 patients. Besides, their opinions on the problem of shortage and recommendations on how to resolve it is sought.

Highlights:

• ·         60 FLWs of various categories (Doctors, nurses and midwives, paramedics, support staff) and levels from 14 districts and 43 institutions participated in the telephone survey;
• ·         The FLWs were unequivocal about the necessity of using PPEs for suspected /confirmed COVID-19 patients since the country is at the stage of community transmission with lots of asymptomatic cases, and patients are hiding facts;
• ·         The FLWs want proper protection (PPE and others) for handling patients (suspected or confirmed) in preference to monetary incentives as declared by the Prime Minister; they also appeared sceptical about its justified distribution
• ·         Concerns for spreading the infection to family members is precipitating mentalhealth problems for the FLWs which needs to be addressed urgently
• ·         Majority of the respondents were not happy about the role played by the different professional associations;
• ·         The respondents had the consensus that this current chaotic situation could have been avoided if coordinated and focused actions would have been taken in the lead time since WHO ‘s declaration of global health emergency;
• ·         The respondents suggested to implement a 7/14 model (7 days of duty followed by 14 days of quarantine and rest to re-energize following the Wuhan experience) of roster and rotation of FLWs;
• ·         All types and levels of FLWs did not get the needed standard training on COVID-19 management and prevention including training of wearing and disposing PPE;
• ·         Country intensive and focused country wide IEC campaign on basics of the disease and preventive measures to allay anxiety, fear and stigma; use of legal measures if and when necessary

For the Full report: http://covid.bracjpgsph.org/assets/files/research/brief/Frontline%20workers_April%2019_final%20brief%202020-min.pdf