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| Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire |
Some private
hospitals, which shut down operations after some of their staff members became
exposed to coronavirus patients, have given details of how carriers of the
deadly virus came to their facilities.
Findings by SUNDAY
PUNCH revealed that the affected hospitals had suspended operations to
decontaminate their facilities and adhere to other guidelines stipulated by the
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control for exposed hospitals.
However, there have
been unconfirmed reports that the facilities were shut by the NCDC and the
Lagos State Government.
The Minister of
Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, and the Lagos State government had threatened that
any private hospital caught secretly treating COVID-19 patients would be shut
down.
But officials of some
of the private hospitals who spoke with one of our correspondents narrated how
they treated patients they did not know were carriers of the virus.
Some of the officials
said hospitals were in a dilemma because some health conditions such as malaria
fever had symptoms similar to COVID-19, pointing out that the situation would
become worse if every patient who came to seek treatment for other ailments had
to be forced to go for COVID-19 testing before being attended to.
SUNDAY PUNCH spoke with the top officials of the
highbrow Lagos hospitals, including Edward Specialist Hospital, St Nicholas
Hospital, Premier Specialists Hospital and Reddington Hospital, Lekki
The Medical Director
of St Edward Specialist Hospital, at Ajah, Lagos, Dr Emeka Okocha, said the
hospital did not know it was dealing with a carrier of the deadly virus because
the patient lied about his medical history.
Okocha, who is a
consultant cardiologist, said, “We didn’t treat any COVID-19 patient. A
hypertensive diabetic came in with the symptoms. The patient came to see me
based on the diabetics symptoms because I am a cardiologist.
“He had complications
of hypertension and diabetes and based on these, I decided to admit him. That
was on Saturday evening, the following day, which was Easter Sunday, officials
of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control came to the hospital. I didn’t invite
them; they came and said the man was a known contact of a person with
COVID-19.”
Okocha expressed
sadness that the patient lied to him and did not disclose that he had had
contact with a COVID-19 victim, saying if the patient had disclosed this, he
would have referred him to the designated centres for treating coronavirus
patients.
The medical director
said, “I asked the patient initially and he said he was not a known contact.
That was what gave me the go-ahead to admit him. I believed what he had was
just the complications of hypertension and diabetes, which had the same
symptoms as COVID.
“He had heart failure,
cough and breathlessness. You cannot differentiate, so I asked him, ‘Have you
had contact with anyone with COVID-19?’ He said no. ‘Did you travel outside the
country recently?’ He said no. He said he came to see a cardiologist because of
diabetes and hypertension complications.
“The NCDC came the
following day and took samples. That was the first time we realised that we
might be dealing with COVID-19. At that time, we could not just send the
patient away because it was not confirmed. We had to keep him there until the
result came out. Unfortunately, the result did not come out until around 4pm
the following Tuesday. The result came back positive.”
Because of the
development, Okocha said some of the nurses at the hospital panicked, even
though they had personal protective equipment, and posted the news on social
media.
He said, “On
Wednesday, the NCDC came and took the patient and that was all. But there has
been noise that there is COVID-19 at St Edward. We had to close down and
decontaminate immediately. We have not reopened till now (Thursday).
“Neither the NCDC nor
the Lagos State Government asked us to shut down, but we closed down on our own
to decontaminate. The patient lied to us and even I was exposed. We went on two
weeks quarantine.
“My mind was not at
rest, and after nine days in quarantine, I went and did a test and the result
came back negative. After that, all the feelings I was having disappeared.
Everything just went away and I am just waiting for my members of staff to come
back to work.
“What we are telling
the government now is that patients like that will always come. So in this
situation, what are we supposed to do? COVID-19 comes with fever, so does that
mean anybody who has fever will be asked to go and do COVID-19 test before we
treat them? That won’t work.
“Even in the estate
where our hospital is located, the residents have been abusing us that we are
treating COVID-19 cases. They said I brought a COVID-19 patient into their
estate and we should move out of the estate. These people are supposed to be
our neighbours but you can see what we are facing. They said we are bringing
COVID-19 patients to the estate and treating them here.
“The problem we have
is more of the stigma than anything else. We made a diagnosis and they have
stigmatised us. We need to educate our people more about this virus and the
issue of stigmatisation. Doctors have to work and if everybody who comes to
hospitals is asked to go and do COVID-19 test before being attended to, then we
are in for a big problem.”
The Medical Director
at St Nicholas Hospital, Lagos, Dr Edun Bamgboye, told Sunday PUNCH the
hospital did not admit any patient with coronavirus but explained that an
outpatient of the company came to the facility and was later diagnosed with
COVID-19.
Bamgboye said the
patient was subsequently referred to the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba for
treatment when he was suspected to have the dreaded virus.
He stressed that the
patient was not admitted to St Nicholas Hospital.
Bamgboye said,
“Contrary to the fake news in circulation, we didn’t treat any patient with
COVID-19. A patient came to our hospital as an outpatient. He was diagnosed as
potentially having COVID-19 and was referred to the Infectious Disease
Hospital, Yaba. He was not treated here; he was not admitted to our hospital.
“We did not admit or
treat anybody that is confirmed to have COVID-19. We carry out kidney
transplant in this hospital and kidney transplant patients are placed on
immunosuppressive medication, so as a matter of policy, there is no way we will
go and treat them with patients with COVID-19. We will not admit any patient
who we know has a confirmed case of COVID-19. “
Asked whether the
hospital had been shut down due to the issue, the medical director said, “We
were advised to decontaminate the hospital, which we have done. We were also
advised to screen everybody and we have also done that. We have screened all
those who got exposed to the outpatient. Definitely, everybody has been
screened and we will not allow anybody who is positive for the coronavirus to
continue to work for now.
He explained, “We
tested the whole hospital but I cannot divulge the number of people who tested
positive because I don’t know you and I can’t give you that figure on the
telephone. We have reopened but the only thing is that we are going to undergo
Infection Prevention and Control Training. We will continue to attend to our
patients on admission but we won’t take on new cases until we complete the training.
“I must emphasise that
the story going round that we admitted and treated COVID-19 patients is
completely untrue. We could not have admitted patients with coronavirus.”
Although our
correspondent could not speak with the Chief Medical Director of Premier
Specialists Hospital, one of the doctors at the hospital, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said a member of staff of the hospital brought the
virus there.
He said, “One of our
members of staff came and complained that he was feeling weak and was having
internal heat. That is not any of the symptoms of COVID-19 and his temperature
was normal. He has never travelled out of the country in his life. He came on a
Monday and by Friday he was admitted. We placed him on isolation and started
calling the NCDC and Lagos State hotlines but there was no response.
“When officials of the
Nigerian Institute of Medical Research came to test him on Wednesday, they told
us that the result would be ready within 48 hours. By this time some other
people said they were not feeling well and four of them were tested altogether.
“At the end of that 48
hours, two were negative and they said they had to get back to us. They later
said the result was inconclusive and they had to come back and do another one.
By that time, the guy had spent about a week in our hospital and they said the
result was inconclusive.
“At this point, we had
to take him to Yaba and use every connection we had to get him admitted there
without his result. When they admitted him, the test result came out and the
NCDC came and asked about everybody who had contact with him and the other lady
who also tested positive.
“Based on the advice
of the NCDC, we quarantined the patient’s contacts in our hospital and locked
down our hospital. The quarantine is over and we have decontaminated the
hospital. The government did not close us down.”
Meanwhile, the doctor
said the hospital worker who initially tested positive for the coronavirus had
been discharged after testing negative for the virus twice.
Also, the Consultant
Physician and Medical Director of Reddington Hospital Lekki, Lagos, Dr Misbah
Oleolo, debunked the news that the hospital admitted and treated COVID-19
patients.
He declined to make
further comment, asking one of our correspondents to go and read a statement
the hospital had issued on the matter.
How COVID-19 patient
died in Surulere General Hospital
Meanwhile, in a
related development, workers at the Randle General Hospital, Surulere, Lagos
State, are in panic after a COVID-19 patient brought to the hospital died of
the infection.
Sunday PUNCH learnt that the victim, a 65-year-old
woman, had presented to the hospital on Sunday with difficulty in breathing.
She was said to have
been treated before some doctors asked that she be taken to the Lagos
University Teaching Hospital, Idi Araba, which is also within the
neighbourhood.
However, the federal
hospital was said to have rejected her, as she was returned to Randle.
She was said to have
died at the general hospital shortly after her return.
A source told our
correspondent that she was tested for the virus on Monday after officials of
the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control were invited to the hospital.
However, apprehensive
medical workers were not informed of the result until Friday, as tension
mounted.
He said, “The woman
was a petty trader. She sold drugs to people and had a fever, which I believed
she tried to treat on her own.
“But when she could no
longer manage it, she came to the hospital on Sunday morning and was admitted.
Her main complaint was difficulty in breathing, so she was taken as a case of
heart failure.
“The woman also had
diabetes. The patient was seen by two doctors, who checked her medical history.
The woman was not breathing well. Those doctors then handed her over to another
set of doctors, who took over the shift from them.
“The new set of
doctors thought that it could be a COVID-19 case and alerted the managing
director and the NCDC was invited to take her samples on Monday.”
Another source said
shortly after the samples were taken, the patient was taken to LUTH by noon.
However, she was rejected.
“The LUTH doctors told
our people who took her there that the patient did not meet up with the
COVID-19 criteria. She was then brought back to the general hospital.
“The doctors and
nurses did their best, but after about one hour, she died,” the source said.
Sunday PUNCH learnt that the death sparked panic
among members of staff, who were apprehensive of the result of the test earlier
conducted by the NCDC.
A worker at the
hospital accused the Managing Director, Dr Aduke Odutayo, of keeping the result
secret until some doctors threatened to take the matter up.
“That was when she
told us, and she said only two people will go on isolation since others don’t
have symptoms.
“The anger is that
many doctors and nurses have come in contact with the woman. They had changed
shifts, met with other patients, went home and met their family members.
“The MD is not willing
to shut down the hospital. She has also refused to allow all her staff to go
for tests, especially those who had contact with the patient. She only
fumigated the isolation centre, the emergency room and the ambulance that took
the woman to LUTH,” the source added.
Our correspondent
observed that the isolation centre of the hospital was unkempt, with poor
ventilation.
A source said
officials of the NCDC had asked the management of the hospital to refurbish the
area, saying it was not good for human habitation.
“A lot of people may
be in danger; the entire Surulere area may not be safe. The deceased was
hypertensive. She had had a fever before that time. You can’t imagine the number
of people she might have come in contact with. They call her Iyabo,” the source
said.
Another worker said
she had decided to stop going to work until the management gave an official
response on the case.
The worker told Sunday
PUNCH that the hospital had kept silent about the case.
The MD of the
hospital, Odutayo, confirmed the incident, adding that the NCDC had been
contacted.
She said, “True, NCDC
is on top of it. They are coming in to check everybody who might have had
contact with the case you may be referring to.
“We have also told all
staff members who are agitated enough and don’t want to wait for the NCDC that
they should go to the mainland that there is a fast-tracking and you have the
right to be tested immediately.”
-----PUNCH
