A/R: GMA justifies Nurse Association’s refusal to use cloth face masks for clinical activities

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) in the Ashanti Region is backing a decision by the Nurses Association not to wear cloth face masks in conducting their duties in hospitals.

This comes after the leadership of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital kicked against the use of cloth face masks by its members for clinical activities.

According to them, there is evidence to suggest that wearing those face masks can pose a higher risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus while the health workers performing their duties.

During an interview on Eyewitness News, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the GMA, Dr. Paa Kwesi Baidoo justified their claim, saying that the cloth masks are not the best to be used by health workers on the frontline of the COVID-19 fight.

“The GMA is not against the use of cloth masks but then if you look at the evidence available, they are not recommended for use in the clinical settings. The hospital and clinical settings are not synonymous. In the hospital, we have the clinicians who are in daily contact with the patients. And even the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that the cloth face mask can be used by the general public so as not to compete with health workers because there is much demand for them worldwide. The prices have shot up and everything but they could not recommend for use by clinicians at hospitals for work.”

“Those in the offices and outside the hospitals can use it but not the clinicians. And this is not me saying it but scientific research done as far back as 2000 even before the onset of the COVID-19,” he stressed.

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