Panic in Kano isolation centre as COVID-19 patients hold health workers hostage

– Ganduje Donates Equipment To Dala Orthopaedic Hospital

There was panic at the Kwanar Dawakin Isolation Centre in Kano, on Thursday evening, when COVID-19 patients reportedly detained three health workers. The health officers, including two male doctors and a female nurse, were rendering essential services at the facility when some angry active patients traced them into an inner room and locked them up for hours.

It took the timely intervention of medical doctors who are also carriers at the facility to secure the release of the innocent caregivers, already suffocating in their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), a source at the facility told The Guardian.

Meanwhile, Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State has donated Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), cartons of hand sanitizer, boots, facemasks, pump buckets, soaps, among others, to Dala Orthopedic Hospital, Kano.

Other items donated to the hospital, according to the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Kano State, Abba Anwar, include hand gloves and other fumigating materials, all in an attempt to cleanse the facility environment and help the facility deal decisively with the pandemic.

According to an eyewitness, who preferred to remain anonymous, the ugly incident broke when some group of patients, who claimed they were not symptomatic to COVID-19 since they were admitted, demanded to be released.

Apart from that, they have been demanding to be tested for the second times in order for the government to release them, a process they could not receive in due course.

“We actually met the people here when we came and most of them have spent more than 15 days here. Claiming to be asymptomatic to the COVID-19 but unknown to them, there are procedures before the release.

“It is true many of us here have no symptoms and it is not easy to continue to keep people here for long. There have been agitations about welfare and timely release of results. The management held a meeting with some of the senior medical doctors, who are also patients. Perhaps, those staging protest are in so much hurry to leave.”

Also, a former Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association in Kano, Prof. Aminu Mohammed, who spoke on a live programme a on local radio in Kano, corroborated the story.

Prof. Muhammed explained that the fully kitted workers with personal protective equipment were locked together with a Covid-19 patient for about four hours before they were eventually released.

Meanwhile, two patients, who flee the Kwanar Dawakin isolation, have been captured and brought back to the facility. The two patients, who tested positive for the disease on their arrival from the United Kingdom about four weeks ago, had lamented the poor condition of the facility.

“You can not bring that somebody who just return from the UK to keep in this facility. By all standard, it is not comparable from where they are coming from. Thank God for their parents, who immediately captured and returned them back to the facility,” a source told The Guardian.

When contacted, Coordinator of the State Task Force on COVID 19, Dr Tijjani Hussain said he was not aware of the development, promising to find out and revert as soon as possible.

At the presentation, governor Ganduje assured the Chief Medical Director, Dr. Muhammad Nuhu Salihu, that the state would continue to give its helping hand to the facility.

“I am glad to inform you that, this federal government facility is performing wonderfully well, as far as the healthcare delivery system is concerned. That is why we are always happy to push forward our assistance to the hospital,” he said.

Ganduje called for good and proper coordination between the state and the hospital, adding, “Without proper coordination between us, we won’t be able to achieve much in this respect. Our system of coordination must be effective.”