In a bid to further contain the virulence of COVID-19, the Lagos State Government has accredited three private hospitals to start attending to COVID-19 cases in the state.
This was contained in a statement from the State’s Ministry of Health, in which the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi gave updates on the situation of COVID-19 in the state.
Abayomi added that one of the recently accredited private hospitals had begun to admit patients, while the other two would soon begin attending to patients.
He said, “They have passed the biosecurity compliance test. They have made modifications to their hospitals so that their staff and other patients are not put in danger or exposed to a higher risk of contracting COVID-19.
“Those private hospitals have passed the test and we are just in the process of issuing them with accreditation certificate so that they can start managing COVID-19 patients in the private sector.
“However, even if they are managing COVID-19 in the private sector, it still comes under the supervision of the Lagos State Government Ministry of Health.
“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 Lagos state government and by extension the federal government of Nigeria,” Abayomi said.
The Commissioner, however, emphasised to the private hospitals, that every single COVID-19 patient data must be rendered to the government for effective data analysis.
He said, “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.”
