Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu of Lagos State has confirmed that there is Indeed a shortage of personal protective equipment for health workers battling COVID-19 in the state.
Sanwo-olu revealed this during a press briefing on Sunday to address concerns about the shortage of medical equipment needed to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the state.
See Also: Police Detains Clarence Peters Over Kodak’s Death
The Governor reiterated that PPEs are medical consumables that are quickly used up as the number of infected persons rise.
“Shortage is not a rumour. If there are no PPEs, there are no PPEs, and the truth about the matter is these are consumables. Even if you buy 10,000, as long as people are using them, as long as people are testing positive, and you’re having a lot more medical personnel on the line, you’ll run short of it,” he said.
“But the question now is how quickly do you ensure that you re-order? These are consumables; it’s like you’re using your masks. They’re one-off use; they’re not for repeated use. So, we’ll continue to buy.
“The thing you need to help us with is to tell a few of our suppliers that this is not the time to profit unnecessarily. These are things that when we started, we bought at N3,000, N4,000, now it’s N15,000, N20,000. People are unduly just taking advantage of it and even when you tell them to go and bring, it’s all stories again.
“So, one of the things we’re looking at is we’re looking inward now to see if we can develop capacity internally and see if our local tailoring companies can be ingenious enough to also solve it and the conversation is going very well if I dare say.”
Governor Sanwo-olu thereafter urged Lagosians not to stigmatise individuals who test positive to the virus after they recover.
Lagos state currently has 1,066 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 246 recoveries and 30 deaths.
Leave a Reply