Lagos State government has approved three private hospitals in the state as fit to handle coronavirus cases after warning that there may not be enough bed spaces for COVID-19 patients in the next three weeks if the number of infected cases continues to grow.
Although the hospitals weren’t named, the Ministry of Health said in a statement on Saturday that one of them had started admitting the coronavirus patients while assuring that the remaining two are to start the admission and management of patients soon.
“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,” the ministry quoted Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi as saying.
He added: “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 COVID19 patients in the private sector.
“However, even if they are managing COVID19 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.”
Forty-two fully recovered COVID-19 patients in the state were discharged yesterday.
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Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said 20 were from the Gbagada isolation center, 11 from Eti-Osa (LandMark) and 11 from Lekki Isolation centres.
This brings to 994, the number of #COVID19 confirmed cases that have been successfully managed and discharged in Lagos.