COVID-19: UCH Ibadan Seeking for funds to Upscale its isolation Centre
The University College Hospital, Ibadan, in Oyo State, one of Nigeria’s premier teaching hospitals has issued an SOS and call for support in equipping the isolation centre. This was disclosed via an open letter to “well-meaning groups and associations” seeking for funds to upscale its isolation Centre in response to the wide-spreading coronavirus disease.
The letter dated 26th of March, 2020 was in spite of the billions of naira released by the President, many corporate organizations and other individuals to tackle the spread of the virus as their Corporate Social Responsibility.
The President had announced the release of N15bn, UBA- N5bn, Abdul Samad Rabiu- N1.3bn, Dangote- N200m and NNPC and its partners- N11bn, among others.
As at 29th March 2020, Oyo State has recorded a total of Seven (7) confirmed cases, while the State Governor, Seyi Makinde, on Saturday, 28th March 2020, had disclosed via his social media handle that “84 Persons of Interest have been identified, and contact tracing and collection of samples have commenced.”
Across Nigeria, only one death due to COVID-19 has been reported while the number of cases have risen significantly to 97 as of press time.
In the open letter, Prof Jesse Otegbayo, Chief Medical Director of the hospital, enumerated the items needed by the hospital while expecting full support from well-meaning groups and Associations.
The letter reads in part,
“As part of the plans to scale up our ability to respond credibly to the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital has commenced plans to scale-up its initial four-bed isolation unit to an 18-bed facility. Due to the highly infectious nature of the organism, all requests are in multiple numbers in order to ensure that cross infection is limited as much as possible."
“To this end, we hereby solicit funds to achieve the following: pipeline oxygen with at least 20 patient points with humidifier, respiratory ventilators, personal protective equipment (apparel), suction machines, nebulizers, bacterial and viral filters, medical consumables, mobile x-ray machine, oxygen concentrators, pulse oximeters and nurse/doctor’s day."
“We are expectant that in the spirit of social responsibility, well-meaning groups/associations, etc., will support the initiative as deemed fit.”
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