Swaziland: Nurses demand protection from TB infection
MBABANE, 26 April 2012 (PlusNews) - Hospitals are not protecting their workers from tuberculosis (TB) infection, say nurses in Swaziland, who recently staged a rare public demonstration to draw attention to how vulnerable they are to this highly infectious disease.
Nurses attached to the National TB Hospital in Swaziland's
commercial hub, Manzini, are blaming inadequate infection
measures at the hospital for the risk they face. TB is one of
the primary killers and the main opportunistic disease in people
living with HIV and AIDS. In a country with the world's highest
HIV prevalence, 80 percent of HIV-positive people are
co-infected with TB.
A study conducted in neighbouring South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal
(KZN) Province has found that the incidence of extensively
drug-resistant (XDR-TB) and multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB is six
to seven times higher among health care workers than among
non-health care worker patients. There are no official figures
for health care workers infected with TB in Swaziland.
Health personnel warn that government's inaction could make
things worse. "Government is killing us with its negligence. We
just buried one of our sisters [another nurse] who died of TB.
She contracted TB at the hospital where she worked," Abigale
Dube, a nurse and member of the Swaziland Democratic Nurses
Union (SDNU), told IRIN/PlusNews.
There are no national guidelines on TB infection control
measures in the country's health care facilities, and nurses say
this makes matters worse.
"What we gathered is that in the other hospitals, nurses have
contracted multidrug-resistant TB because they are exposed to
the disease on a daily basis. This can only mean their working
environment is unsafe," said Nurses' Union General Secretary
Nathi Kunene.
A nationwide strike attended by all nurses would ensue if issues
like poor ventilation, unhygienic conditions and a lack of
protective gear were not addressed, Kunene said.
Swaziland has the world's highest TB infection level, and a 2010
survey found that 7.7 percent of all TB cases involved
multidrug-resistant TB, putting it among the countries with the
highest rates of this variant of the disease.
According to a recent report
on MDR-TB in Swaziland, "the high prevalence of drug resistance
in a country already facing a huge epidemic of TB and HIV shows
an urgent need for major interventions in terms of detection,
treatment, and infection control".
Health services are being overwhelmed by the number of patients.
"There is a shortage of nurses in Swaziland. The country does
not pay well compared to other countries, and we have nurses
trained here who are doing quite well in Europe, where they are
in demand,” said Nurse Dube
“The reason they don't stay here is the same reason that
the remaining nurses are in danger - no money to make the
hospitals safe places to work, so there will be fewer nurses as
they grow sick and die."
The Ministry of Health has responded to rising TB rates by
"decentralizing" TB care from Mbabane, the capital, and Manzini
to some regional health facilities, so that patients do not have
to take long bus trips to receive treatment.
Even with 15 clinics nationwide now offering free TB testing,
the number is still inadequate, and transport costs and user
fees at health facilities are still a major hurdle for patients.
The National TB Programme announced this week that Swaziland's
TB response has received a US$19.4 million boost from the Global
Fund to fight Tuberculosis AIDS and Malaria. One of the areas
that will be strengthened is infection control measures at
healthcare facilities.
"Following the declaration of TB as an emergency, the country
has already geared to working in an emergency mode in the fight
against the epidemic,” it said in a statement. “The
funding will go a long way in addressing TB challenges."
PlusNews
http://www.plusnews.org/Report/95364/SWAZILAND-Nurses-demand-protection-from-TB-infection
