Patients, relatives may flee Ogun hospital over Lassa fever

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NIGERIA: FEARS have gripped in-patients at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Abeokuta, in Ogun State after Lassa fever killed a mortician and an Assistant Chief Nursing Officer at the hospital.

The GatewayMail gathered that family members of the patients and workers, too, are apprehensive of contracting the dreaded disease in the hospital, hence their resolve to quit the hospital any moment from now.

Hospital sources said that the dreaded disease killed Okusaga, and the nurse, Omobolanle Adesuyi, who was a staff at the medical centre.

The deceased persons, GatewayMail learnt, died following their infection with the killer disease after their contacts with an alleged Lebanese patient in the hospital‎.

It further gathered that the 43-year-old nurse, who joined FMC in 2001, had innocently contracted the virus while administering medications on the patient, who later died while on admission.

Similarly, the mortician, who was infected while bathing the corpse of the Lebanese, died last Friday, and has since been buried by the family in Ijebu-Ode.

It was further gathered that the deceased had just completed his National Youth Service Corps service to join his parents’ business of undertaking.

Sources at the hospital said on Wednesday that the in-patients and their family members have expressed their desire to leave the hospital to avoid being contracting the killer disease.

“The patients have told us that they wanted to leave the hospital.  In fact, their family members have been disturbing them that they want to leave because they don’t want to contract the disease in the process of taking care of their loved ones in the hospital,” the hospital source said.

The source added: “I won’t be surprised if by Thursday or Friday you see some of the patients and their families leaving the hospital.  You know they came here for survival and won’t want to contract a disease that will eventually kill them.”

It would be recalled that following the reported death, workers at the Emergency Treatment Room (ETR), where the Lebanese was said to have been admitted abandoned their duty post for fear of contracting the disease.

But to allay the fears, the management of the hospital in conjunction with the Ogun State Ministry of Health‎ have agreed to set up isolation centre for any emergency case of Lassa fever.

The Health Commissioner, Babatunde Ipaye, who spoke on the measure charged the nurses to always attend to all patients in the most hygienic and clinical manner.

“We are going to immediately create an isolation center here at FMC to cater for unexpected cases and emergency on public health issues like Lassa fever to include others communicable diseases.  I have sent medical officers out to confirm the root of the case,” Ipaye assured.

He explained that continuous sensitization has been ongoing on the need for the public to keep maintaining high sense of medical and personal hygiene.

According to him, the sensitization also requires urging the people to get rid of rats in and around the house, ensure that all foodstuffs are well covered at all times and engage in constant hand washing.