Rising prices of medical masks and other personal protective equipment (PPEs) are undoing a lot of Nigerian hospitals as doctors and nurses run out of PPEs amid surging cases of coronavirus in Africa’s most populous nation.
Doctors and nurses are worried about their safety as the rate of patient-to-health worker transmission continues to rise.
Many hospitals cannot afford to kit their doctors and nurses as it takes N25,000 or more to kit a doctor or nurse properly each day with PPE. A hospital with 50 doctors will need a budget of N1.250 million daily to kit them.
A pack of 50 surgical disposable face masks sold for less than N4,000 in January now goes as high as N17,000. Also, a kit of medical protective clothing sold for N1,500 in January on Jumia is now N14,000, BusinessDay finds.
