The Lagos State Government has disclosed that many people who tested positive for coronavirus were running away from going to isolation centres for treatment.
The state’s Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, who disclosed this on Friday said that was one of the reasons the state still had unoccupied beds at the isolation centres in spite of recording more cases than its bed-capacity.
Abayomi made the disclosure while responding to questions on the discrepancies between the number patients at the isolation centres and the number of active cases in the state.
He said: “There is also a situation that we experience, when we test people, sometimes they find it difficult to find them. The ambulances will go into community, people will flee their homes, and they make it difficult for us to find them.”
Speaking further, Abayomi said some positive patients sometimes leave their environment to avoid being admitted while some do not answer their phones.
Noting that the ministry did not have time to go round communities looking for COVID-19 positive individuals, the Commissioner pleaded with those who have tested positive to present themselves for treatment.
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“If you have tested positive, we expect you to cooperate with us and make yourself available so that you can be admitted and accessed.
“Our isolation facilities are really comfortable, it is not like the Ebola days, we have made a lot of improvements.
“Members of the executive and senior people in government have been admitted into those facilities. If I test positive, I will go to one of those facilities,” Abayomi said.
He disclosed that the state still had about 307 unoccupied beds out of the 569 total bed spaces available in the state.
Abayomi also disclosed that the state has just opened Gbagada Hospital and “we are yet to admit most of the patients we want to admit into Gbagada. As soon as we fill Gbadaga up, our occupancy will increase to over 70 or 80 percent.
