FCTA Upgrades Facilities To Cater For 500 Cases of COVID-19
…Trains hundreds of doctors, Nurses
BY GRACE ANYANWU, ABUJA – As part of efforts aimed at containing and ultimately eradicating the Coronavirus pandemic in the nation’s capital, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, has carried out several measures.
The measures include scaling up capacity, ensuring compliance to health advisory and readiness of various actors to tackle the COVID-19.
Other measures adopted by the FCT Minister include ensuring early tracking of suspected carriers and their contacts; adequate provision and equipping of new Isolation Centres and expanding the capacity of existing ones; provision of additional bed space and equipping of the primary isolation center at the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital with a newly acquired 350KVA generator set already installed.
The measures put in place by the FCT administration also include ensuring that additional hospitals amongst which are the Asokoro General Hospital, Garki Hospital, Karu and Zuba General Hospitals have been provided with adequate bed spaces and medical equipment to handle COVID-19 cases as well as the on-going training of 300 Nurses, 100 Doctors, 15 Pharmacists, 137 Laboratory scientists and 100 Support Staff.
Similarly, plans have also been made for the provision of more COVID-19 Testing centres in collaboration with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). Presently, the FCT has two (NCDC testing Center and Mogadishu Cantonment Testing Center) while the goal is to provide five more to bring the number to 7.
In the same vein, the FCT administration has concluded plans to increase the number of Sample Collection Centers in order to increase turnaround and response times.
A statement by the Chairman, FCT Ministerial Expert Advisory Committee on COVID-19, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo, said that following a meeting held with political leaders in the FCT, the Minister urged them to use their existing structures, within all the communities to sensitize and inform the general public on health precautions, self-isolation and safety measures to take during this time.
Present at the meeting were the FCT Minister of State, Dr Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu; Senator Phillip Aduda, Senator representing the FCT; Hon. Micah Jiba representing AMAC Bwari Federal Constituency; Hon. Hassan Sokodabo, representing, Kuje, Kwali Gwagwalada and Abaji Federal Constituency; the FCT Chairmen of APC and PDP, the FCT Commissioner of police; other security chiefs as well as senior members of the FCTA bureaucracy led by the Permanent Secretary, Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa.
Similar meetings were also held with religious leaders in order to get their buy-in and also cascade the sensitization to their followership particularly against the backdrop of the enforcement of the Presidential directive on the cessation of movement in the FCT.
In a bid to stem the spread of the Coronavirus, the Minister, after an emergency security meeting which was attended by the heads of the various military formations, paramilitary agencies and senior administrative staff of the FCTA, directed all organs of the FCT Security Services and other government agencies to ensure that all entry and exit points of the FCT and by extension, other satellite towns, are manned by relevant officials to ensure that everybody stay home.
Bello also mandated the closure of recreation centres, places of worship, markets, amongst others in line with the Federal Government’s directive.
The Minister constituted five Enforcement Teams to ensure compliance of already laid down COVID-19 containment strategies.
In addition to these efforts, there is an on-going mass enlightenment campaign that cuts across all Area Councils of the FCT with the aim of educating people on the need to observe basic preventative measures as advised by the World Health Organisation and medical professionals.
It is worthy to also mention the contribution of the private sector in the fight against COVID-19. In this regard, the FCT Minister received a N500M donation from the United Bank for Africa (UBA), through the Vice chairman of UBA, Ambassador Joe Keshi, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Abuja.
Part of the contributions of the private sector include the on-going work on a five-story building in FCT that can serve as an isolation and treatment facility for about five hundred COVID-19 patients, should the need arise.
Similarly, the Idu Isolation Center is currently being outfitted with the necessary healthcare equipment by a private construction firm and would be ready soon. These are some of the many efforts being extended by the private sector to the FCT Administration.
This is just as the Chairman of the FCT Medical Advisory Sub-Committee, Dr Ejike Orji, has confirmed that plans have been put in place by the Administration to supply more Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to healthcare workers to ensure the safety of medical staff on the frontline.