COVID-19: Cross River State Trains 400 Health workers, beef up preparedness
Oru Leonard
Cross River State COVID-19 Response team working with the Ministry of Health has commenced the training of 400 hundred health workers and other auxiliary staff like the sanitarian, ambulance drivers, surveillance officers, etc.
The training which began with train the trainers for Infection Prevention and Control of the Corona Virus Global Pandemic has continued to gain more volunteers and commendation for the state Government.
The training of trainers exercise which was held at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital conference hall, is to ensure that the State is up to date with upgrade of its level of preparedness as the state work to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.
It will be recalled that the Cross River State Government has been collaborating with the UCTH to train health workers at a small scale but now the state has decided to train in large scale.
Declaring the training open on Friday, Commissioner for Health in the state, Dr. Betta Edu, who is also the Cross River State COVID-19 Chairman reinstated the Governments commitment to keep Cross River State COVID-19 free. She said, the state most important priority is to prevent the disease. “The state will continue to do everything within its might to improve the level of preparedness for the COVID -19 response in the state” Dr Betta added.
The Commissioner reminded other participants that the state will be depending on them as trainers to equip others with the technical knowledge on how to handle the Infection Prevention and Control of this Virus. Persons trained are expected to work at the three Isolation centers in the state with a 120 bed capacity put together. “Am so pleased with the large turnout of skilled professional volunteers. We are indeed together on this” she expressed, and thanked the management of UCTH for all the support.
The Chief Medical Director, University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, UCTH, Professor Ikpeme Ikpeme, represented By the CMAC commended Governor Senator Ben Ayade and the Health Commissioner Dr Betta Edu for putting all efforts towards ensuring that the State continues to maintain her COVID-19 free status. He commended Government for their support to the institution, noting that the training will go along way to provide more skilled manpower for the response.
The training will be done with twenty persons per each batch simultaneously at various venues in Calabar and Ogoja LGA.
