Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, SAN, has assured First Consultant Medical Centre of the support of his government towards mitigating the impact of the losses it recorded while attending to the index case of the Ebola virus disease and the attendant crisis that followed.
The governor made the pledge when he led top officials of the state government on a visit to the hospital in Obalende where the index case, Mr Patrick Sawyer, was admitted before he died.
Fashola said the government would help in the replacement of equipment discarded in the process of decontamination and would provide other forms of support to help the hospital get fully back on its feet.
He commended the hospital for its sacrifice in the fight to contain the virus, saying the government was proposing a law designed to boost the capacity of health professionals and guarantee their safety at work.
Four health workers who had contact with him in the hospital died while four others tested positive to the virus but were successfully treated in quarantine.
Consequently, the hospital was shut and decontaminated, leading to the discarding of equipment worth millions of naira.
Fashola said: “You need to let us know how we will help and, certainly, we will help.
“One of the ways the state government will be assisting the hospital is to replace all the equipment discarded during the decontamination process.
“This is the first thing we will be doing to replace the tools, but, most importantly, we will also be supporting the personnel, because they are the most important tools.
“On law, there is the Public Health Law and you were right to have acted the way you did. We are also considering the amendment to that law.
“And when the executive bill goes to the parliament in a couple of weeks, I have asked them to list it for consideration to see what we can do in the law to strengthen capacity going forward.”
Fashola said he visited the hospital as part of the process to fix post-Ebola damage and making things that had been affected by the crisis begin to run back.
He added that his visit was to pass a message that people should not live endlessly in fear over problems but they should always confront them and move on with their lives afterwards.
The governor commended all those who helped in the containment of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the state, saying their support helped to avert what could have been a tragedy.
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Mr Benjamin Ohaeri, thanked the governor for the visit, saying it had helped to enliven the atmosphere at the hospital and boost the morale of the personnel.
He said the hospital paid a big price in containing the virus as it lost four workers, including Mrs Stella Adadevoh.
Ohaeri said some other workers tested positive to the virus while caring for the index case but were subsequently sent to quarantine and treated.
While saying the hospital had learnt a big lesson from the experience, he said the institution would be more than willing to share such to better what had happened.
“The state government and the hospital must share the experience so that we can better what has happened.
“A lot of things happened and the most important thing now is to go back to the basics,” he said.
