The Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Gbenga Omotoso, on Thursday justified the decommissioning and redeployment of some health workers managing COVID-19.
Omotoso disclosed that exercise was necessary following the reported decline in the number of positive cases.
He stated that rather than decommissioning all the frontline workers after all the state’s 554-bed isolation centres were shut down, the government decided to transfer some of them to the tuberculosis and HIV wards of the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba.
Omotoso told WuzupNigeria that only one functional isolation centre was still active in the state.
“That is what the Mainland Hospital is meant for. It is called Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba. It was actually remodelled to accommodate COVID-19 patients after the outbreak of the virus.
“Now that COVID-19 is going, the hospital has to revert to its primary role. Therefore, if anybody is saying he or she is overwhelmed with work, the person is not being truthful, objective and fair.”
“If you look around, you will observe that all the isolation centres have been shut down. We have only one functional centre left in Lagos. That is the CACOVID facility in Yaba which has the capacity to accommodate 100 patients. But at the moment, only five COVID-19 patients are left in that facility.”
