The 44-year-old Italian, who is being held at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos, has made attempts to escape from the facility. A health worker at the Mainland Hospital, Yaba, who did not want to be named, told Punch that the man was angry and attempted to escape over the state of the centre.
The health worker countered the words of the state government about building a well-equipped facility in readiness for the disease. Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Obafemi Hamzat, had said during a press briefing: “It is a lab that we built that can accommodate 100 for now but it is only one bed that is occupied today. Hopefully, it wouldn’t spread. We are ready and we are well equipped. He (the patient) is there and he is getting better. He is steady. The doctors say he is going to be fine. The health worker, however, revealed that the Italian was upset about the surrounding and that he lamented excessive heat and mosquitoes.“The patient wanted to run away yesterday (Friday). The Italian man, who seems to be an engineer, was very angry that the room where he was kept was very hot,” the health worker said, wearing no special protective equipment.“There is nothing there (inside the isolation ward) aside from bed and hospital locker. He almost ran away and is still threatening to do that.”According to the source, the state’s level of preparedness infectious diseases such as coronavirus and Lassa fever “is zero.”He alleged that most health workers quit their jobs “because they are predisposed to the danger of infection.”The health worker alleged that emphasis is being made on self-quarantine because the state lacks the requisite facility to hold all who have had contact with the index Coronavirus patient.“The standard medical operational procedure is to track all contacts and have them quarantined to avoid further spread of the virus. But we cannot do that here because we lack such facility, which is why there is an emphasis on self-quarantine,” he said.
