Fashola advises private hospitals on isolation units

Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has called on private hospitals in the state to set up isolation units within their facilities.

Fashola said this on Friday during a visit to the state’s Isolation facility at the Infectious Disease Centre at Yaba, Lagos, which was set up to care for patients with symptoms of the Ebola virus.

Even though the disease is devastating, the governor said it was not an automatic death sentence depending on what was being done as treatment.

Fashola said, “Private hospitals must put in place isolation units because we cannot do this alone. People are going to go to them sometimes before they are referred to us, so they must take the same precaution and defence and create isolation wards in their hospitals now for people they suspect might have the disease. Monitor, if they are all cleared, discharge and if they are not cleared, let us know immediately so that we can either pick them up or you move them to us.”

He lauded the Nigeria Medical Association for calling off its industrial action, expressing the optimism that the members of the association would sign up for the battle against the disease.

He said, “We are taking precaution and that is why we did not go into where the patients are because there is a very strict protocol for going there. You must wear a fully protected gear to go in there.”

“We are expanding to ensure that we are able to cope with anything that comes. Provisions have already been made so that we can separate very critically ill people from people who are just showing symptoms but who need to be in isolation.”

Fashola said the state government’s defence against the virus at the moment was to prevent it from spreading.

The governor had on Thursday held a consultation with the Centre for Disease Control in Washington DC. He hinted that the discussion bothered on what was being done in the US.

“It is important that those who contacted or who suspect that they have contacted it or they have had contact with somebody who contacted it, do not make any further contact with any member of their family,” he said.

The governor said, “From what the Centre for Disease Control told me yesterday (Thursday) there is no known cure but if it is known and diagnosed early, patients can make full recovery because here you can give them very intense medical care which involves managing their waste, managing their body fluids, giving them antibiotics and fluids to rehydrate their body and to ensure that their immune system is able to find a standing chance to combat and make full recovery as we have seen in some parts of Liberia and Sierra Leone.”