By Joyce Remi- Babayeju
As Nigeria continues to battle the COVID-19 cases via medical treatment in hospitals and isolation centres, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has lamented that irregular and unstable power supplies is disrupting smooth services. Ehanire made this known, Monday at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 press briefing in Abuja. He said that as much as the Federal Government is making efforts at improving it’s services, irregular and unstable power supply is still a clog in the wheel its progress. He said, ” we have distributed medical equipment such as ventilators and oxygen concentrators to all Federal hospitals and states. “One of the challenges we have in our hospitals is irregular and unstable power supply. This leads to frequent breakdown of power sensitive medical equipment resulting in the disruption of services, he said. He said ,,that the Niger Delta Power Holding Company is being consulted to partner with government to ensure power supply to teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres.He bemoaned that many of those who died would have been saved if they had access to medical services on time. He disclosed that government has engaged the National Emergency Medical Services and Ambulance System, NEMSAS, which is designed to provide Nigerians with prompt access to medical treatment when needed. So far Nigeria has recorded a total of 61440 confirmed cases from 578,841 persons tested for COVID while 56,611 cases have been discharged. “We have sadly lost 1,125 persons to the disease. We now have 3,704 active cases as more persons are treated and discharged with case fatality rate of 1.8%. Most of those infected are between the ages of 21 and 40, the fatalities are higher among older groups especially those above 60 years with co-morbidities, the Minister noted. He advised that people should take responsibility to protect the older ones around them.
