By Timothy Alao, Osogbo
Governor of the State of Osun, Adegboyega Oyetola has reiterated his administration’s determination to forestall community transmission of Coronavirus and rid the State of the pandemic.
Oyetola stated this on Wednesday while fielding questions from journalists shortly after inspecting some health facilities in the State. He disclosed that the government had expended a lot on the procurement of modern equipment installed in the health facilities across the state.
The governor, who attributed the success recorded so far in the management of COVID-19 in the State to his government’s proactiveness, said ‘the outbreak would have posed a looming danger to the state if not for the priority given to the health sector.”
He emphasised that the decision by his administration on inception, to revitalise over 300 Primary Healthcare Centres and the general hospitals across the State, including the one in Ejigbo, was a reflection of the priority accorded the health sector.
Speaking further, Oyetola urged residents of the State to report any COVID-19 symptom to the concerned authorities, stressing that the State government was determined to eliminate the disease in the State.
“What we are trying to do as a government is to be proactive enough because perhaps this is the time for community transmission. We have Isolation Centres in about three places, I have been to the one at Specialist Hospital, Asubiaro and I am in another one here at Mercy Land, we have another one at Ife and I am going to visit the one at Ejigbo.
“We are doing all of these to ensure that we have sufficient facilities to take care of the possibility of community transmission. We thank God that we were able to manage the ones we had, about 20 of them, I think God has been very kind to us
“So, it is important for us to start to think about community transmission, and as it is, we are making arrangement for not less than 300 to 500 beds with sophisticated ICU. I have inspected some of the facilities we have and I am satisfied with what I saw.
“What we have seen here shows that we are prepared for emergency in our state. Some states do not even have some of the facilities that we have. It is not that we are comfortable, but we have taken the health sector as a priority and a major thing for us.
“Since the inception of our administration, the health of our people has been the topmost priority and this made us to embark on the revitalisation of all the primary health centres across the state.
“Take for instance, if we didn’t renovate the General Hospital in Ejigbo, when the issue of Coronavirus occured, it would have been a disaster and you can imagine how overwhelmed it will be.”
Governor Oyetola also reiterated the need for the Federal Government to support Osun in its commitment to contain the community transmission of the deadly virus..
He said the support was necessary in view of the huge resources that the state had committed to contain the spread of the pandemic in the state.
“I want to appeal to federal government to come to our aid now. We have done all of these with our resources. This is the time to assist the state governments to be able to make sufficient arrangement to tackle the transmission, it is real and it is happening now.
“If one look at Lagos for instance, it started with 2 to 3 index cases but it has been on the increase. We are lucky in our state that we don’t have such occurrence, but we want to really intensify efforts on testing because the more the test, the possibility of having more cases.
“What we are doing now is to ensure that we have sufficient facilities that will be able to take care of them.
“So, I want to appeal to our people to continue to cooperate with us in this fight against Coronavirus. They should continue to stay at home. We don’t want anyone to die and the best thing to contain this virus is for us to stay at home”, the Governor said.
Reacting to insinuations that the last case had been discharged from the isolation centre, the governor simply said, “there is still one outstanding patient. He has been treated but still positive but he is receiving treatment at the health facility at Specialist Hospital, Asubiaro, Osogbo”.
