SERIOUS CRISES LOOMING IN OGUN OVER COVID-19 CHALLENGES

FISAYO SOYOMBO

The Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Abeokuta, Ogun State, is filled with patients exhibiting classical COVID-19 symptoms. Normally, this shouldn’t be a problem; it’s a hospital after all. But these patients are at the Accident & Emergency and at the Emergency Treatment Room (ETR) of the hospital. 

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They may still be suspected but one notable red flag is that their names are registered in the hospital’s records in red ink. Admitting them at the A&E (both children and adult emergency) means they mix with their relatives and other patients, who in turn interact with hospital staff. Relatives of the suspected COVID-19 patients, for example, use the same wash-hand basin as hospital staff, consequently endangering the lives of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers. Should the current arrangement continue, the spread of the virus will be rapid.

For instance, some three weeks ago, a baby was tagged ‘suspected case’ and admitted at the child emergency only for a PCR test to subsequently confirm her positive. She eventually died but by then she’d already infected three doctors.

To worsen matters, the baby’s case is one of the few PCR tests done by the hospital of late. FMC Abeokuta has largely been relying on serology testing (anti-body screening) for COVID-19 suspects, using kits that aren’t standardised or validated, and billing patients N6,500 for each test. The PCR being standard, all the hospital needs to do is swab the patients and send the samples to the 54 Gene Mobile Laboratory at Oke Mosan in Abeokuta or, at worst, the mobile lab in Sagamu.

So, in Ogun, there are a few questions for the authorities to answer. Why is FMC Abeokuta favouring serology testing that costs N6,500 over the PCR testing that costs nothing? Why are pathologists, who’re not licensed to perform lab tests, the ones handling the tests rather than the ‘med lab scientists’?

Why is the Ikenne Isolation Centre not functioning? If it was, FMC Abeokuta wouldn’t be dealing with the burden of suspected and positive COVID-19 cases. And why can’t the Federal Government equip FMC Abeokuta or the Ogun State Government equip the State Hospital at Sokenu with a functional isolation centre for holding COVID-19 suspects until their status is confirmed? If the authorities won’t help an FMC in establishing and enforcing basic protocol for curtailing the spread of the virus, then the general public must know they are ‘on their own’.