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The new 100-bed State Infectious Disease Centre created by the Oyo State Government for coronavirus patients at Olodo will be ready for use on Monday, the State COVID-19 Task Force committee has assured residents.
The acting chairman of the State COVID-19 Task Force Committee, Prof Temitope Alonge disclosed this at a press conference on Wednesday, while giving updates on the coronavirus situation in the state.
Alonge, the immediate past Chief Medical Director(CMD), University College Hospital (UCH), was appointed by Governor Seyi Makinde to chair the committee on his behalf after he tested positive to the virus on Monday.
Speaking on the level of job done at the Centre, Alonge said it is be above 80 percent, adding that that stepping in for the governor as the chairman of the committee is a big task. He, however, noted that it is a task that must be done in order to ensure that information available to the people of the state are correct, accurate and precise.
The acting chairman noted that the Infectious Disease Centre at Olodo, which he described as the main anchor of COVID-19 cases in the state “is almost set to receive the first set of patients from Monday.
“His words: “We have made some adjustments to the entire centre and I can take you through the flow.
“But, most importantly, the two issues that the Task Force in Oyo State has been able to achieve is that the functionality of the Task Force through the EOC is not focusing a 100 percent on treatment but on actual prevention and education of the people and that is why you have seen us go round the markets, distributed materials to the local government authorities primarily to let the people know that prevention is actually better than cure.
“And so, if we maintain all the preventive measures that have been put in place and are been hammered upon on a regular basis by the members of the Task Force, I believe we will have less of a burden coming into the treatment centre.
“Please as much as possible, maintain physical distance and not social distancing alone. Physical distancing is different from social distancing in the sense that social distancing was brought in as a terminology that was to reduce social interactions in pubs, clubs and areas where people relax. Whereas physical distancing is more apt in telling you to maintain a distance between yourself and your neighbour.
“Ensure you wash your hands regularly and more importantly, please be on the lookout for people that may have symptoms around you. This disease does not respect persons, neither does it respect academia, political positions, cadre and our governor has been magnanimous not only to express his best wishes to everybody in Oyo State, but he is in sound health and sound mind and he is still controlling the affairs of the state.
“Leveraging from his encouragement to us, those of us on the field are carrying forth his mandate.
“Today, the extent of work done at Olodo has advanced and the first thing we do is to ensure that the health workers who are going to be working here are not only optimally protected but that they have all that is required.
“As I speak, we have 600 personal protective equipment, specifically earmarked by me.”We have procured three set of 5KVA inverters. One will power our High Dependency Unit (HDU) and Resuscitation Unit, another one will power the ventilators while the last one will be for the lightings of the entire Centre.
“This does not preclude the generators and other sources of power installed in the facility.
“We only need to put in some finishing touches, like Oxygen, running water and solar panel system. We also have a small mortuary because not everyone will survive but we don’t pray for anyone to die. In a setting like this, people are bound to die and we have to provide them with decent storage.”
The Task Force also revealed that the government has received close to a N100 million from willing donors to fight COVID-19.
The State Commissioner of Finance, Mr Akinola Ojo, who stated this said the state is already considering modalities for giving palliatives to the people to cushion the effect of the hardship occasioned by the partial lockdown of the state.
“We set up three bank accounts with partner banks for the Oyo State CoVID-19 endowment fund. We set up an account with First bank, UBA and Unity bank.
“These three accounts are the designated accounts by the state government to accept donations on behalf of the state government. Currently, we have several hundred pledges and as of today, we have close to a hundred million already deposited in these three accounts.
“So, we must thank the citizens and all those who have helped donate. Also what we want to let everyone know clearly is that, only those three accounts are the designated accounts for any donation for Oyo State. Also we must thank those who donated in kind and materials,” Ojo said.
Although, the commissioner did not give name of any specific donor, he assured that there are a lot of donations coming in and there is a sub-group of the Task Force currently helping to manage the donations that are being received.
Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, CP Fatai Owoseni(Rtd) said the state has achieved about 90 percent of curfew enforcement, adding that the security operatives deployed for the enforcement are mindful of human rights and avoiding abuse.