COVID-19: 2,683 Refused To Turn In For Admission In Lagos – Akin Abayomi

Lagos State Government on Monday said 2,683 COVID-19 patients in the state have refused to show up at the isolation centres for admission after their test came out positive.

This the government said was done out of fear of stigmatisation or ignorance refused to show up at the isolation centres.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi disclosed this on his Twitter handle, @ProfAkinAbayomi.

Speaking also at a briefing on Monday in Alausa, he said there is provision for patients to be treated at their homes with the supervision of the state ministry of health, adding that the State had begun home treatment for COVID-19 patients and currently had over 500 patients in the state’s isolation centres.

“They have been informed of their status and they have decided that they won’t wish to be admitted. So, they have made it difficult for us to find them, the evacuation team has been trying to call them, once they know our phone number, they stopped picking our calls. When we go to their homes to collect them, they are not there.

“If we are diagnosing 250 every day, we need to move to several locations in one day. If a person doesn’t wish to be admitted, it is very difficult to enforce it. However, what we have observed is that when you know your status and you start to feel unwell, people voluntarily walk into the isolation centres and present themselves with their COVID-19 test result so that they will be admitted,” Abayomi said.

On how far the State still has in battling thee virus, the Commissioner said, “I did say about six weeks ago that we might see between 90,000 and 120,000 cases of COVID-19 in Lagos State by August. What we think is that for every one person that is diagnosed with the virus, there are probably 10 more in the community that we have not diagnosed.”

Alice Ajakaye