Warns Private Health Facilities Against Management of Cases Without Accreditation
The Lagos State Government is putting in place strategies for the commencement of home- based management of asymptomatic and mild COVID-19 cases. Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, who disclosed this yesterday at a news briefing to give situation report on COVID-19 management in Lagos, explained that the government was working on parameters to integrate home-based care to the isolation strategy in the management of cases, stressing that asymptomatic and mild stage of the infection would now be managed at home, rather than isolation centres.
Abayomi noted that the home-based care is necessitated by the increasing numbers of positive cases in the community, which is a result of the increase in testing capacity, adding that with the increasing numbers of positive cases, the possibility of running short of bed spaces in isolation facilities cannot be ruled out, making it imperative to opt for home-based care for people who have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic to the infection.
He stressed that the government would pay more attention to patients with moderate and severe cases and manage such cases at the isolation centres, because they are not suitable to be managed at home.
He stated that home-based care would be provided with a COVID-19 pack with which they can monitor their body temperature, measure their oxygen level and be given certain vitamins and pain reliving drugs to manage themselves.
The commissioner explained that the state’s testing capacity was being ramped up, as it now has the capacity to perform 1,000 test per day and working at raising the capacity to 2,000 or 3,000 per day, so that everybody that needs testing or wishes to be tested could get tested.
He stressed that every COVID-19 patient in the state must be known to government for adequate data capturing, saying: “If you are managing COVID-19 without government permission and we are not capturing your cases in our database, you are performing an illegal act according to the laws of Lagos State.
“So, if you want to manage COVID-19 in Lagos State, we are not saying you cannot. All you need to do is to submit an application and we will visit your facility to ensure that you have the required equipment and specialised personnel to manage COVID-19 cases. If you can demonstrate that you can do all these, then we will give you the approval to manage the disease.
“Also, information about every patient managed by the hospitals must be made available to us, so that we can record it in our database”. “COVID-19 remains a public crisis and all public crises are managed and supervised by the state government and by extension the federal government.”
He disclosed that three private hospitals have already been accredited to manage COVID-19 cases, stressing that one is already admitting patients and the other two would soon start admission and management of patients, adding: “Even if they are managing COVID-19 in the private sector, it still comes under the supervision of the state government (Ministry of Health.”
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