Thefts and attacks on nurses around the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital and at the Nurses Quarters in Sekondi have resurfaced seriously as the whole area has been plunged into darkness again.
The streetlights which provide illumination for the area at night are all off especially from the hospital’s junction to the Accident and Emergency Unit.
As a result, thieves have capitalised on that and are attacking the nurses going to work at night or returning from work late at night.
The nurses who stay in the quarters have to pick taxis to their quarters, which is just about three minutes’ walk from the hospital, because if they dare walk they risk attacks.
That aside, those who go on night duties have their rooms ransacked by the thieves while they are away on duty. In a recent theft the robbers made away with television sets, DVD players, radio sets, money, mobile phones, shoes and other items belonging to the nurses.
Currently, the nurses at the quarters are living in fear because once the thieves have started moving into their rooms they might end up raping the females if they should break into the rooms of a female.
Asked if they did not lock their doors, the nurses said: "We do but how they manage to open them we don't know, they would enter the room without your knowing it. That is the basis of our fear."
According to the nurses, previously the thieves always entered their kitchens and frontages to collect anything they could find for sale.
However, in recent times, and within the last few months, they had broken into rooms for more than eight months and on countless occasions raided the compounds.
This happened when the police had not yet concluded their investigations into the killing of a security man at a nearby hostel. The security man was alleged to have been strangled to death and items belonging to the students stolen.
The nurses expressed surprise that prior to the Ghana 2008 football tournament, the streetlights were working, but a few months after the games the lights were not functioning anymore.
"When we close from work we have to pick ‘dropping’ from the Emergency Unit to the quarters, which under normal circumstances is about three minutes’ walk. Those on the night shifts have to be escorted to the hospital and then take a taxi back home after work," they said.
They said nurses were the only people who had so far been attacked but those who had to call late at the hospital for medical care were also under threat.
“We have made several complaints to the hospital and other authorities but nobody seems to care about our plight,“ the nurses lamented.
The female nurses are actually living in fear as no one knows what will happen when a robber sneaks into their rooms while they are asleep.
When the Daily Graphic visited the block, the residents, who were very much agitated, led this reporter to the rooms that were ransacked when some of the nurses were asleep while others were off on night duty.
They complained that if the robbers happened to enter the room of a female nurse and see her asleep they might not only rob her but also attempt to rape her.
They pleaded with the authorities to restore the faulty streetlights if they could not provide the blocks with lights.
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