A call has gone to the government to seek the cooperation and involvement of private hospitals as the nation battles to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

The call was made by Dr Barth Ufoegbunam, Medical Director, Gracevalley Medical Centre, Isolo, Lagos in a statement made available to The Boss.

According to him, 12 out of the 14 deaths in Lagos State occured in private hospitals which means that the government facilities cannot do the job alone.

He contends that with the community spread of the virus now a major threat, government need to issue guidelines and encourage private hospital to upgrade in order to threat COVID-19.

His statement in full reads:

*MANAGEMENT OF COVID-19 PATIENTS, CAN THE GOVERNMENT DO IT ALL ALONE WITHOUT THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE PRIVATE HOSPITALS WITH INTERESTS*?

Lagos state government recently said, out of 14 deaths recorded in Lagos at a time, 12 occured in the private hospitals.
The media was awash recently with the news that about 40 health workers have tested positive to CORONAVIRUS in Nigeria.

Impliedly, most of them are very likely to have been infected in the private hospital settings and the reasons are quite obvious.

A good number of the suspected COVID-19 patients are likely to visit the private hospitals first and yet these set of hospitals are the least assisted, least equipped and ill prepared in terms of having the necessary PPE and other safety gadgets needed to tackle a disease of this nature with very high transmissibility capabilities.

Yet the private hospitals have been warned by the honorable minister of health not to treat COVID-19 patients without accreditation.

Here is the unanswered  million dollar question:

Since COVID-19 is not written on any patient’s face, how can a doctor in a private hospital setting even with a high index of suspicion identify a COVID-19 patient with respect to just the presenting complaints and examination findings alone without the benefit of a COVID-19 test at the time of presentation in the hospital?

Keep in mind that a number of medical conditions could present with COVID-19 like symptoms too.

The sad truth is that many patients may suffer some clearly avoidable deaths on account of possible rejection and reluctance to offer treatment to critically ill patients on account of the foregoing.

It is hard to see with the exponential rise in the number of cases occasioned by the active community transmissions, how private hospitals that are still open for business any way will be able to avoid treating patients that may turn out to test positive to COVID-19 afterwards.

*The Way Forward;

The government will need to have a rethink on some of these issues.

On a practical note, most of the private hospitals in the cities with high number of COVID-19 cases should be given the requisite technical assistance, equipped with PPE and other necessary safety gadgets.
This will be done with a view to strengthening their capacities, so as to keep them well positioned to effectively handle CORONAVIRUS patients without endangering their own lives.
Their duties may be specified, i e how to identify, isolate, make provisions for COVID-19 testing and refer to designated government centers for further evaluation and experts management.

The government agencies should start to gradually co-opt the private hospitals with such interests into the whole picture of COVID-19 management.
There may come a time when the designated government centers will be unable to cope with the increasing patients traffic, I’m afraid we are getting there already.
In a pandemic the situation could change so fast.

As of March 23nd 2020 Nigeria had just 40 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infected persons, a month after that cases have gone up to 981

In the yesterday’s WHO and partners media briefing..Someone asked a question and said that South Africa has tested over 100,000 people till date.Ghana has equally tested about 70,000 people.

How come Nigeria hasn’t tested up to 10,000 people considering her large population?

There is no doubt that our policy makers have worked tirelessly round the clock to make the moderate achievements we currently have in Nigeria possible.

Truth be told this is hardly enough, some of us believe it’s high time we went for a paradigm shift not just in the currently adopted testing system but in all other areas given the narrowing of the window of opportunity that we still have at the moment to flatten the curve before things get out of hand

There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria is currently under testing which without a doubt may equally translate to under reporting of the true number of cases in the country.

The rising number of cases is an indication that there may be a need for a clinical audit by all relevant stakeholders, of where we started, where we are now and where we want to be and what needs to change in our battle against COVID-19 contagion

I thank you all.

Dr. Barth Ufoegbunam
Anchor. Health Matta TV health talk show