Ebola Victims in Lagos Lack Care- Relations

Relations of those who have been quarantined at the Lagos Ebola centre have said the victims are not adequately taken care of. While speaking with Premium Times today, one of the relations that do not want his name published so that his relation won’t be victimized said, they go as far as buying antiseptic liquid and toiletries for them to make use of. He said a lot that would shock you.

I know the State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola has visited this place and even said the victims are well taken care of, and for so many reasons I believe him and know he would never allow any family member to buy things as cheap as toiletries for their relations to make use of especially at this critical time. So when I saw the story I decided to bring it here, so that the Governor can read and investigate.

Below is what the relation told Premium Times;

“Lagos State government said they are taking care of the Ebola patients. But you need to visit where they are. When you do you would find out that the place is a rundown infrastructure. It doesn’t have a decent toilet. Some of them are there getting malaria. How can you be treating one sickness and getting another? Family members are having to buy things like toiletries, detergents. We are buying bleach for them to wash hands.

“They’ve been kept in one ward and share the same toilet. What happens to WHO standard that says each patient should be separated from the other? If people know that the government is doing this I don’t think anybody would want to come down here to quarantine them. Government says some of them are recovering, why is it that those recovering are in the same room with everybody who is sick?” he asked.

He questioned what the money released for the treatment by the government is being used for when the facility and patients lack all basic essentials.

“Government says they are releasing money. Very soon we would hear that they spend so much billions during Ebola crisis but we are here and there is nothing on ground.” Last Friday, the Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Media, Reuben Abati, said the President has ordered the immediate release of N1.9 billion “to execute a special intervention plan to tackle the Ebola outbreak.”

The relative said though the patients were separated according to sex on Thursday, the facilities in the new wards are nothing better than the old ward.

“You would expect that having used an emergency place that was dilapidated when using a new infrastructure it would be uptight and everything would be there but now again it’s going to be another big room and there is everybody there. When you wake up in the morning and somebody sitting beside you died, who would that help them to recover?

“They are seeing people they used to know dying left, right, and centre, someone died today and he died in the presence of other people and you expect them to recover? Someone should throw light about this so that government can wake up and discover how things are done. I read countless articles in the paper that everything is fine. Nothing is fine.”