COVID-19: 2,683 patients refused to be admitted – Lagos

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has said 2,683 COVID-19 patients in the state have not turned up for admission after their test came out positive.

Abayomi disclosed this on his Twitter handle, @ProfAkinAbayomi, saying the patients out of fear of stigmatisation or ignorance refused to show up at the isolation centres.

At a briefing on Monday at Alausa, Abayomi said the patients could decide to be treated at home under the supervision of the state ministry of health.

“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.

The commissioner added that the state had begun home treatment for COVID-19 patients and currently had over 500 patients in the state’s isolation centres.

The health commissioner predicted that by August the number of confirmed COVID-19 case in Lagos State might hit between 90,000 and 120,000. Punch