LASG Offers Free Medicare to Pregnant Women, Others During COVID-19 Lockdown
…May extend COVID-19 Lockdown Period
Lagos State Government (LASG) offers free medicare to pregnant women who fall into labour during the period of COVID-19 lockdown including, accident victims.
Governor Babajide Sanwoolu in a broadcast directed that medical bills of all patients in emergency and Casualty cases, including registration, laboratory tests, surgeries, and drugs as well as maternity cases for normal delivery and caesarean sections will be taken care of by the state in all the 27 General Hospitals in the state during the COVID-19 lockdown.
According to him, “What this means is that, at this time, patients with the above-listed conditions will not need to pay to access treatment and care at all our 27 General Hospitals across the State”.
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The Governor however commended Residents for complying with the restriction order which he noted “has not been easy, but it is abundantly clear that this was a step that had to be taken, a necessary sacrifice, to avoid far more disruptive outcomes”.
According to him, “The restrictions have also started paying off, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control has told us that they have been able to take advantage of the absence of traffic on our roads to make appreciable progress in their contact tracing in the period of the COVID-19 lockdown.
He however hinted that the state may need to extend the period of COVID-19 lockdown beyond 14-days saying,
“If there’s a need to extend the lockdown, I will. We got one discharged patient today (recovered from the coronavirus). We are going to sit down with the committee that is working on the community markets and see if we can announce more next week.”
On the glitches and hitches experienced during the food distributions for palliative, Governor Sanwoolu apologised saying, government has returned to the drawing board for more strategic and robust approach for better performance.
His words: “While the Program has since begun to make a positive difference in the lives of many of the intended beneficiaries, I must also acknowledge that there have been hitches and snags in some aspects of the implementation.
“It is not as though, we never envisaged teething problems along the way, but I must tell you that our major focus was to roll out without delay and fine-tune the modalities as we continued with program expansion.
“What we however did not reckon with, was the extent to which some people would go to deliberately undermine and sabotage a program intended to bring succor to the poorest among us.
“This kind of malicious behavior is unacceptable, and we will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that all the culprits are identified and appropriately punished”, said Sanwoolu.
Sanwoolu added: “I must assure you that we have since returned to the drawing board for a more superior strategy to ensure that this laudable program is not compromised by the sheer irresponsibility of a few, and that the full palliative impact is realized across the State”.
He however disclosed that the total number of COVID-19 patients in the state has risen to 109 with a total of 24 recovery and discharged.
The Governor appealed to residents to continue to maintain social distancing as a measure to curb the contagious coronavirus and follow other hygienic measures to defeat the deadly disease in a short while especially in the period of the COVID-19 lockdown.
