Why I Visited First Consultant Hospital – Fashola

First Consultants Hospital was where the index case of EVD in the country, Mr. Patrick Sawyer from Liberia, was received and attended to on Sunday, July 20, 2014, after he was rushed from the Murtala Mohammed International Airport where he collapsed on arrival from his country. He died at the hospital on Friday, July 25. As a result, the hospital was shut down and decontaminated later with some of the equipment destroyed as part of the decontamination process.

Governor Fashola, while fielding questions from newsmen after the tour of the facility, said his visit to the hospital was in order to identify with the staff as a way forward adding that now that the Ebola Virus Disease has been dealt with professionally, the way forward was to get on with life.
He told the newsmen, “The way forward is to move on with our lives. What we know, we have contained and we must move forward from there”. He, however, called for caution because, according to him, public health issue is a burning challenge worldwide with an ever growing population.

“We must be cautious; understandably public health issues remain and will continue to remain the burning challenge in a growing global population and, therefore, our basic sanitation habit must improve, our professionalism must improve, our sense of duty and dedication must improve, if we take on any assignments in whatever sphere of life, we must discharge those assignments with dedication”, the Governor said.

Recalling the testimonies of the doctors and other medical personnel who were the first contacts with the index EVD case at the First Consultants Hospital and were infected but survived the disease, Governor Fashola described their case as the example of dedication to duty pointing out that they survived principally because another doctor showed dedication and professionalism.

He declared, “It was also a doctor who just refused to give up on them, Dr. Davis, and this is the way it must be. Whether you are a journalist, a soldier, a police officer or a footballer, just do what you do with dedication and all will be well”. The Governor said the first stage of the containment process was to save life while the second stage was to help affected businesses get up and run again.

According to the Governor, “First, and things have to be dealt with in stages, human life was at risk so all that was most important then was to save as many lives as we could. Tragically and unfortunately we lost some; but we also saved some and after dealing with human life, we have to deal with businesses”.

“So, for me the next stage as I said earlier, is to get our lives back, getting the schools back, getting the businesses to run, dealing with the challenges of our day-to-day living; because this will not be the end as I keep saying. In the past we have had epidemics of influenza, cholera, it has lately become SAS, foot-and-mouth disease, Laser Fever, HIV AIDS and so on and so forth and more will come”.

Reiterating the need for members of the public to put the issue of EVD behind and get on with their lives, Governor Fashola noted that a new virus had just broken out last week in Colorado with no known cure yet and with children being hospitalized, adding, “But they are getting on with their lives and so must we. We must not live in fear of what we do not know. We have dealt decisively, comfortably and professionally with what we know. Anything that comes out from the woodworks then we must confront it again and deal with it and resolve it”.

Earlier, while being conducted round the facility, Governor Fashola had told the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Benjamin Ohiaeri, to articulate the equipment losses suffered by the hospital as a result of the decontamination after the death of the index case with the view to assisting the hospital replace such equipment.

He again paid glowing tribute to the hospital staff, particularly the management, for the role they played in bringing the index case to the knowledge of the State Government instead of taking the easy way out adding that if they had not insisted on detaining the patient, the story would have been devastatingly different today.

Addressing some curious members of the public who had gathered at the gate of the hospital to welcome him, Governor Fashola said everything relating to the issue of Ebola has been settled adding that what remains is for the people to ensure that they take cleanliness very seriously by washing their hands regularly with soap and water.

“You should stop defecating on unauthorized places or urinating in an open space just anyhow, these are some of the things you have to take note of”, he told them adding, “Our health workers had done all they could do, and in the course of this some of them have died, but the most important thing is that we should make sure we tidy up our houses, our toilets, where we prepare our food , we are not only talking about Ebola, we are also talking about Typhoid, Cholera , we have to put an end to it now”.

Dr. Ohiaeri had earlier told the Governor during the tour that the hospital suffered both human and material losses as a result of the EVD infection from the index case pointing out that First Consultants Hospital suffered 50 percent of the number of victims who lost their lives to the disease during the period.

Explaining that the hospital lost those he described as “some of the best professional staff of the hospital”, the Chief Medical Director said very sophisticated equipment were also destroyed in the process of decontamination of the hospital while patronage has also dropped drastically.

The CMD praised the Governor and the State Ministry of Health for their prompt response to the information on the index case adding that although the Governor was on lesser hajj at the period, the Ministry acted promptly and professionally.

“The outside world is dump-struck with what has happened in Lagos”, he said
The CMD, who described the EVD experience as a learning process which has made the staff stronger, however, wanted clarification on the right of a patient to sign against medical advice when it is well known by the doctor that his action would put the lives of members of the public at risk.

In response, Governor Fashola said such a law is in existence in the State and is already in the process of being amended to reflect such realities as manifested in the case of Sawyer.

With the Governor during the visit were some members of the State Executive Council including the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris and his Special Duties counterpart, Dr. Wale Ahmed as well as other top government officials.