We Don’t Spend N1m Daily on COVID-19 Patient, LASG Clarifies

We Don’t Spend N1m Daily on COVID-19 Patient, LASG Clarifies

By Segun James

Alarmed by reports quoting the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, as saying that the state government spends one million Naira daily on each COVID -19 patient in the state, the government yesterday denied the figure as untrue.

The government in a statement by Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso, said there must have been a misunderstanding between what the Health Commissioner said and what was reported in the media.

According to him, “it is clear that N1,000,000 sounds more sensational than N100,000, but we must not allow sincerity to be sacrificed on the altar of sensationalism. What the Honourable Commissioner sought to communicate was the range of symptom manifestations of the Coronavirus – from mild and moderate to severe and critical.

“He explained that the cost of treating these manifestations vary, considerably. In summary, he said this about the cost of COVID-19 care: Every case is different and it is very difficult to calculate exactly how much managing a COVID-19 patient would cost, but what is clear to us is that when you add up the expenses of maintaining the facility, infrastructure, human resources, feeding and consumables, it costs the government approximately 100,000 naira per day for a non-complicated COVID-19 admission.”

Omotoso said “of the 13,835 positive cases identified in Lagos thus far, about 18% equivalent to 2,490 have been admitted into the state’s isolation centres. Of all these patients admitted – about 7% were severe and 1% was critical; that is 8% of total admissions.”

An alarmed Information Commissioner cried out that “It has become evident from the subsequent reporting of the Honourable Commissioner’s comments and answers that there are misunderstandings that require clarification” adding that “Honourable Commissioner gave an indication of the considerations factored into the costing of intensive care, including ventilation, dialysis, intravenous antibiotics, oxygen and other high and intensive care requirements, depending on the complications of the case.

“He went on to estimate the cost of intensive care, which usually requires a longer period of admission, and may range between N500,000 to N1,000,000 per day.

“Unfortunately, certain sections of the press chose to latch on to the figure of N1,000,000 and disregarded the painstaking context that had been provided by Prof. Abayomi.”

“That figure was the upper end of a band and, just as importantly, it applied to no more than 200 out of 2,490 admissions, majority of whom recovered. That means the balance of 2,290 non complicated admissions each cost around N100,000 per day.”

He stressed that testing protocols – The number of tests being conducted presently when compared to what we did in the early stages of the pandemic has shown incredibly significant growth.

“Alongside that has come certain challenges. We are not where we want to be, but it would be unfair not to acknowledge the tremendous progress that has been made by the State. With rapid growth has come glitches, which we recognise and are striving to overcome.

Refining and improving on our testing protocols is a process rather than an event and we recognise the challenges and are actively engaged in addressing them.

“Cost of Care –The Honourable Commissioner, in the interest of transparency, offered a window onto the economics of COVID-19 care and, regrettably, some Reporters misunderstood his comments,” he stated.

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