The Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) Ikeja has lost a nurse and Assistant Director Nursing Service, Mrs. Adenike Bakare, to COVID-19.
Nurse Bakare was said to have passed on on Friday June 12 this year and was buried privately on same day in the state.
In the words of a source, no one is sure of how she got infected. “LASUTH is not a designated treatment centre for COVID-19 but there have been admissions of COVID-19 patients many times in the hospital including her ward”.
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Adetokunbo Fabamwo, confirmed her death.
According to the CMD, Nurse Bakare worked in the critical care unit of the hospital. “We don’t treat COVID-19 in LASUTH but there will be some that were admitted unknowingly and their tests will turn out positive later. There have been many like that”, he noted.
But when we see pure COVID-19 cases at presentation, Fabamwo continued, we don’t admit them but take them to the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba.
Meanwhile, the Chairman, Lagos branch of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Mrs. Blessing Israel, described the development as unfortunate. She decried: “It is unfortunate that the state government had not taken the issue of health insurance for health workers seriously”.
“The whole world is saddened by the death of our colleague at LASUTH. We lost her to COVID-19 and it is so pathetic,” she stressed.
Israel suggested, however, that it is ideal for medical staff to be insured. “Ideally, all medical staff must be insured. We heard that the state government has insured us all but nobody has received insurance certificate”.
She lamented: “Now Bakare has died. What becomes of her entitlement in that regard? I was at the burial yesterday. Sincerely, it is sad.”
