The Lagos state government has accredited three private hospitals for the management of COVID-19 cases.
Akin Abayomi, the state commissioner of health, who made this known at a media briefing, said the accredited hospitals have passed the biosecurity compliance test.
A biosecurity test is a set of preventive measures designed to reduce the risk of transmission of infectious diseases.
The commissioner said the management of COVID-19 cases will still be under the supervision of the state ministry of health.
“They have passed the biosecurity compliance test. They have made modifications to their hospitals so that their staff and other patients are not put in danger or exposed to a higher risk of contracting COVID-19,” he said.
“Those private hospitals have passed the test and we are just in the process of issuing them with accreditation certificate so that they can start managing COVID19 patients in the private sector.
“However, even if they are managing COVID19 in the private sector, it still comes under the supervision of the Lagos State Government Ministry of Health.
“Also, information about every patient managed by the hospitals must be made available to us so that we can record it in our database.
“COVID-19 remains a public crisis and all public crises are managed and supervised by the Lagos state government and by extension the federal government of Nigeria.”
Abayomi had earlier said the state will soon run out of bed spaces if it keeps recording high number of COVID-19 cases.
He had said efforts were in place to devise other means to handle COVID-19 patients.
The state has the highest number of infections in the country. As of June, 5,663 cases have been confirmed in Lagos.