“We can’t say where she contracted it from but most likely the area where she worked had an outbreak”
At least five public sector nurses died from COVID during pandemic
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Bahamas Nurses Union (BNU) President Amancha Williams confirmed that a nurse from the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) maternity ward died of COVID yesterday morning.
In an interview with Eyewitness News, Williams expressed her deepest condolences and sadness over the loss of her member, even as she noted the country is seeing a spike in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.
“Our nurses are contracting COVID. We just had a nurse die this morning, may her soul rest in peace,” she said.
“It was COVID. We can’t say where she contracted it from but most likely the area where she worked had an outbreak and that’s the maternity ward.
“We are now in mourning. We have been in mourning every other week with our colleagues, some due to COVID and some of natural causes.”
Williams said the union knows of five nurses who died from COVID since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
“We’ve had numerous nurses in the hospital fighting for their lives, but thank God some of them are still at home recovering, some of them are in quarantine and some of them are still fighting complications due to COVID,” she said.
The Bahamas has recorded 13,781 cases of the virus since last March and 274 deaths.
Health officials also confirmed an uptick in hospitalizations on Wednesday, with some 79 positive cases moderately ill and another 13 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Williams noted that as COVID-19 cases start to rise again, nurses continue to work underneath extreme pressure, some of them not having had vacation and working overtime amidst a personnel shortage.
She noted that nurses have also been working on major wards with no air conditioning for four weeks.
“Nurses are working very hard to facilitate a fourth wave we are seeing,” she said.
The BNU president also noted that some of her members are still waiting to be paid overtime from Hurricane Dorian and throughout the pandemic.
Last month, Health Minister Renward Wells advised that healthcare workers who were promised an honorarium for working on the frontlines throughout the coronavirus pandemic would be paid by the end of July.
He explained that the government will pay out some $600,000 to 150 individuals by the end of the month for those who worked directly with COVID during the first wave of cases.
However, Williams said the union continues to work on the matter, but has yet to see signs of that promised payment for July.
The government has also committed to giving $100,000 to the family of every individual in the healthcare sector who died in the course of treating COVID patients.
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