Ebun Francis| Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos state has explained why he is yet to take the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Sanwo-Olu who made the disclosure at the official unveiling of Evercare Hospital, a tertiary health centre in Lekki, Lagos on Thursday, said he just wanted to abide by the rule that healthcare personnel should take the vaccines first.
The governor said he will hopefully take the vaccine on Friday.
He said, “I just want to follow the rules. The rules are that the health workers at the frontline should first take it. So, I am pleading with the Commissioner of Health to be gracious and let me also take.
“So, they have given me a date, tomorrow (Friday) and I am hoping that they would have started giving it to the health workers.”
Sanwo-Olu who equally restated his administration’s commitment to improve healthcare infrastructure as well as make services more affordable and accessible for residents in Lagos State, stated that his administration is working with the private sector to reduce medical tourism and brain drain through provision of infrastructure and retraining of personnel in the health sector.
He further disclosed that his administration spent billions of naira last year on procurement of health equipment, adding that the equipment are on the way and when they arrive, they will complement what the country has in public health facilities.
“For us as a government, we have raised our strength on health, especially our capital expenditure on health. We are currently renovating to a world class, six of our general hospitals. We are currently building two new general hospitals. We are building a children hospital. We are building an international research centre. All these are meant to complement what we have currently, the governor said.
“We will also scale up tertiary health centre, Lagos State Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). We will be discussing with you in the next coming months what we want to turn LASUTH to. All of these are to make healthcare accessible and affordable.
“We are trying to stop medical tourism; people traveling several thousand kilometres to go and secure or get health treatment. With good facilities, we will bring down the total cost of health care and provide quality health care.”
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