Deputy General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association Dr Titus Beyuo has called on government to outline to the public, a definite emergency response mechanism put in place should there be an outbreak of Covid 19 following the reopening of schools.
Speaking on Accra based Joy TV; Dr Beyuo indicated that it is quite worrying to note that most of the guidelines given by the government in relation to the reopening of schools lack a well-defined emergency plan to be adopted should there be a surge in cases at the schools.
According to him, the reopening of schools comes with a cost which may be dire, the reason it is important for authorities to consider all options in their guideline implementation processes.
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Dr Beyuo indicated that guidelines on the easing of restrictions in the country have been “uni-dimensional” with no benchmark for making a tactical retreat. He said Ghana should learn from the experiences of other countries that had to close down their schools again due to a surge in numbers of Covid19 after they were reopened.
” In all our discussions, we are assuming that everything will go very well. What I want to hear from the Ministry of Education in conjunction with the Ministry of Health is, what will the benchmarks be, what level of outbreak are we expecting, what level of prevalence in schools are we likely to experience? Answers to these questions will allow independent observers to meausre the level of suspense” he noted.
According to Dr Beyuo, if these critical questions are not given the right attention and consideration and pretend as though everything is going to go well as planned, then an outbreak in a single school may jeopardise all the efforts the government has put into containing the spread.
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Deputy Minister of Education, Dr Osei Adutwum in response to the concerns raised by Dr Beyuo said, the government is aware of any possible eventuality and as a result has taken notice of them. Dr Osei Adutwum said most of the decisions concerning the emergency plans borders on issues of confidentiality which may only be made public when things do not go as planned.
He said “In the middle of a pandemic, your communication should be well thought through and well planned. I will not for once think that authorities at the highest level in government are not thinking of the issues raised. We cannot just go on air and tell the people that things will not go right as planned. You cannot send children to school and in the same breath tell parents that something bad is likely to happen and when it does, schools will be closed down again.”
Dr Osei Adutwum indicated that after carefully observing all the guideline plans used by other countries on reopening of schools, none had publicly announced its emergency plans.
“You only communicate what you are going to do to make sure that you will protect the children” he clarified
As part of easing restrictions in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, government has directed final year students in the Junior High Schools, Senior High Schools and universities to go back to school in order to be able to sit for their exit examinations. Government among other things has provided personal protective equipment to these schools as well as designated health facilities that will attend to the schools in an event of a possible outbreak.
Source: Kojo Dei/ATLFMNEWS
