The Osun State Governor, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola, on Wednesday, commissioned a state-of-the-art isolation centre in Osogbo as part of efforts to complement the effective and efficient management of coronavirus pandemic in the state.
He said the Coalition Against COVID-19 (Ca-COVID) renovated the health facility and donated equipment and consumables for 100 beds to which the state government added 60 beds.
On the same premises, the state has another 20-room single beds isolation centre, giving the Mercyland facility a 180-bed isolation centre .
Inaugurating the facility, Governor Oyetola disclosed that the facility would serve as an addition to the government’s other initiatives in containing the spread of the rampaging virus.
He attributed the successes recorded by the state on the effective management of the pandemic to holistic approach launched against the virus since its berthed in Nigeria and the state.
Oyetola noted that the administration had swiftly adopted creative and proactive methods to manage the pandemic as it had dedicated funds, human resources and indeed focused resolve to beat the virus and end the menace.
He said the state government had renovated and equipped three other isolation centres which include, 130-bed facility in Ejigbo; 12-bed capacity in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, a 20-bed isolation centre and 8-bed Intensive Care Unit at State Specialist Hospital, Asubiaro, Osogbo, making 342-isolation beds and 8 ICU-bed facility in the state.
Oyetola added: “We are adopting a holistic approach to winning the pandemic, including working with the National Centre for Disease Control and the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
“We have dedicated personnel doing contact tracing, testing of contacts, isolation and care of patients for quality treatment. We have extensive publicity and sensitization programmes in place to educate and update our citizens regularly on how to stop COVID-19 in its tracks.
“There has also been provision of palliative for citizens, introduction of lockdown and curfew as appropriate to ensure effective containment of the virus without hurting our economy and livelihoods.
“The employment of this method as well as the cooperation and compliance of our citizens is the reason we have been able to achieve the modest success we have recorded so far, despite the huge imported cases we had to contend with at the initial stage of the pandemic in the State”.
