NMA President expresses worry over continued lockdown without adequate palliative
– Steve Ovirih.
President of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Dayo Faduyile has expressed mixed feelings over government’s effort at curbing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Nigeria. This is coming barely 24 hours to the end of the second leg of the lockdown declared by President Muhammadu Buhari covering Lagos, Ogun and the FCT Abuja.
In a telephone chat with the NMA President, Dr Faduyile said while it could be disastrous to relax the lockdown now with the increasing number of positive cases of coronavirus, Nigerians cannot continue to be locked down indefinitely without adequate provision of appropriate palliatives that can cut across. ” With the increasing number of positive cases , relaxing the lockdown maybe disastrous but Nigerians can’t be locked down indefinitely without appropriate palliative,” Dr. Faduyile said.
He maintained that allowing Nigerians to move around with the increasing number of confirmed covid 19 cases in the community may spell doom, advising federal government to think outside the box in order to ensure that if at all the lockdown is extended, it will be balanced with a fair spread of palliatives across the country and among the most vulnerable people in the country.
Faduyile told the polity.net that government will have to put something in place for us to have an effective lockdown process, noting that if these things are not in place , lockdown will just be a pronouncement and not in action. He stressed that to contain the spread of coronavirus, government across board need to put on their thinking cap to find a balance between palliative and lockdown.
He made it clear that Nigeria was yet to get a safe position to ease the lock down; looking at the health issue , he stressed that the lockdown was pronounced to stop transmission of coronavirus but so far community transmission curve has not been flattened in the country going by the record of cases in two big states , Lagos and Kano.
The NMA top notch advised Nigerians to adhere to the social distancing counsel and to always use the face masks regularly, stressing that we need to be very careful so that we are not overwhelmed by the community spread of the contagion.
