Nurses at the Cape Coast Metro Hospital in the Central Region have vowed to stay away from work in the coming days after a snake entered the hospital at dawn.

The nurses say, their lives and that of patients are under threat and will only continue to work if the hospital authorities cause the health facility to be sprayed with chemicals to ward off any reptiles around immediately.

A nurse who spoke to Kasapafmonline.com under condition of anonymity said the snake was spotted by a pregnant woman around 2;30 on a stretcher parked at the entrance of one of the wards.

“Pregnant women in labour when they’re having difficulty in delivering, are sometimes asked to go and wash down and usually soon after that they deliver. So we asked one such pregnant woman to go and shower.

Just as she stepped out she screamed there was a snake around, we initially thought she didn’t want to have the shower and so we came out to force her to shower down only to see the snake laying on the stretcher. We informed the Administrator and later called in the security personnel who came to kill the snake.”

She added: We’re not safe here, I’m told this is not the first time, in one such instance, a staff accidentally stepped on a snake but was lucky she was not bitten. What we’re saying is that if the authorities fail to spray the hospital as soon as possible, we’ll also stay away from work because we value our lives.”