The Edo State Government has disclosed that the Stella Obasanjo Hospital that has been re-moulded as an infectious diseases centre in response to the coronavirus outbreak in the state, would receive confirmed cases of the disease from Tuesday, this week. The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Patrick Okundia, said this yesterday in Benin while conducting journalists round the Infectious Disease Isolation Unit of the Hospital.
He said the state government has isolation centres in the three senatorial districts of the state, including the Stella Obasanjo Hospital, University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), and the Ogbe Nursing Home in Edo South; Auchi General Hospital in Edo North and the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital in Edo Central. “We have 30 ventilators that are being distributed across the isolation centres in the state. As from Tuesday, we would be moving some of the confirmed cases into this facility at the Stella Obasanjo Hospital. The ventilators here would be used in managing the critical cases of COVID-19,” he said.
He explained that the state government would open a 31-bed ultra-modern infectious disease facility at the Stella Obasanjo Hospital next week together with the existing 12-bed unit to serve as the main isolation centres, while the other sections of the hospital would be used as holding facilities. “One unique thing about the Stella Obasanjo Hospital is that it has an incinerator, which would be used to dispose of the materials from the infectious disease treatments,” he said.