The Aftershocks of Pandemic Restrictions: Report from Ghana: Part 2: The Nurses
Aboom, Cape Coast
Thursday 4 January 2024
The weather outside this morning is pleasantly balmy, but another oppressively hot day is in the forecast. This is the season of the harmattan, the scorching wind that blows south from the Sahara, covering everything — vegetation, roads, sidewalks, cars, houses — with a thin layer of fine brick-red power. It’s hotter and drier and dustier than I remember it being here. Even the locals are complaining about the heat.
I am in the office of the Metro Health Directorate, where a prominent poster features a full-color photograph of a young women and her baby, along with the admonition GET YOUR COVID-19 VACCINE HERE. I listen to the nurses talking quietly among themselves as three preschool-age boys scamper about underfoot. I’ve come to learn what I can about how the pandemic restrictions have affected the practice of medicine, and in particular childhood immunizations, in this country.
The first patient of the morning arrives, a young woman with a baby girl strapped to her back. I am allowed to watch as the young mother unpacks her baby and sits down, serenely awaiting what comes. Nurse Elizabeth explains to me that the child is here for her Week Fourteen visit, in order to receive the recommended three shots of seven vaccine products — Penta (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hepatitis B, and Influenza), Pneumococcal Pneumonia, and Injectable Polio Vaccine, along with oral polio vaccine and oral rotavirus vaccine.
The mother flips the baby over on to her right side, and the nurse swabs the leg with alcohol. The baby cries loudly as the nurse administers the first shot, of Penta, and then the mother flips the baby over to her left side. Again the baby cries loudly as two more shots are administered, and then the mother flips the baby over on to her back and holds her mouth open as the nurse administers two drops of oral polio virus vaccine and five drops of rotavirus vaccine. The baby screams once more, perhaps more loudly than when she was being jabbed. The nurse apologizes, and the baby’s cries fade to muffled sobs. The mother bears all this with patient good humor. She’s been here before.
The nurse explains the side effects the mother should be on the lookout for — fever, pain and swelling — and then we’re done. Nurse Elizabeth explains the national vaccine schedule to me — fifteen shots of ten different vaccine products in the first twenty-four months of life — and afterwards I sit down with her and the other nurses and get down to the real business at hand.
I ask how the lockdown affected childhood immunizations here. People were forbidden to leave their homes, except for emergencies, and obviously children were not able to get their required shots. But after the pandemic restrictions were lifted, the nurses went from door to door, making sure everyone was up to date. I ask if they have seen a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, but they answer in the negative.
Have you seen any cases of measles? What about diphtheria? They all shake their heads. They can’t remember the last time they have seen any cases. That’s good to know. Thanks to the efforts of dedicated nurses like these Ghana has been spared that particular pernicious effect of the lockdowns — unlike other African countries.
What about the covid vaccine? Have they seen any complications? Fever, headache, and weakness were very common. Nurse Wendy tells of women and girls whose menstrual cycles have ceased, and one young women who experienced a miscarriage after she got the shot. The other nurses nod in assent, and indicate they all have heard of similar cases. They’ve also all heard reports of strokes and sudden deaths post-vaccine, but are not sure whether the vax caused these or not. Nurse Susan adds she herself suffered migraines after her shot.
And what about the covid itself? Only one of them claims to have known someone who died of coronavirus infection. Head Nurse Patience adds she herself has prioritized for the vaccine, due to her status as a front-line healthcare worker, but she caught the covid anyway — but, she assures us, “It would have been a lot worse without the shot.”
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