“Covid-19 patients Need more Bed Space”-Osagie Ehanire

According to the Federal Government and recent statistics, the country has recorded a total of 8,915 COVID-19 cases,

This increase has brought to the notice of FG that there is a need to acquire more bed space.” The patients in Lagos are mostly affected by the lack of bed space”- – Osagie Ehanire reported.

With this in mind schools and hotels have been considered to get ready for the isolation of COVID-19 patients in response to the overflow of hospitals especially in Lagos which has 4,012 patients and counting, the highest in Nigeria.

It is reported that on May 28 the minister of health, Osagie Ehanire, asked schools and hotels to be prepared while speaking at the briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.

Osagie Ehanire noted that the situation in Nigeria would not experience the horrific scenes of lack of bed space as seen in some European hospitals.

He added that “We are, surprised or worried about the increasing number of COVID-19 confirmed cases; because of the capacity of our health system to cope with the pandemic.

Nigeria currently has over 112 treatment and isolation centers in all states with over 5,000 beds, but not all states have made it up to at least 300 beds prescribed for isolation and treatment.

“We need to continue increasing bed capacity to match the probable number of patients so that we do not experience horrific scenes of bed space shortages seen in some European hospitals. I had the privilege of commissioning one such center yesterday, a re-purposed hospital in Benin city, Edo state, with 300 beds, including ICU and an Edo state-owned PCR testing laboratory“   he said.

If we experience serious overflow, we can prepare hotels and school dormitories to be used for level 1 (quarantine) and level 2 Isolation (of COVID-19 positive with zero or mild symptoms), so that hospital beds are dedicated to level 3, (moderate to severe cases) and level 4 cases, (high dependency and Intensive care unit).