Kano shuts hospital for handling severe virus cases

The UMC Hospital in Kano State capital has been shut for attending to “severe cases” of COVID-19, instead of referring the patients to isolation centres provided by the state government.

“The action by UMC Hospital is in parallel with the standard set by the Kano State Task Force on COVID-19, which requires such facility to attend only to mild cases of the disease,” Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, said in a statement on Wednesday.

It was gathered that the behaviour of the UMC Hospital led to the death of two patients, whose cases were severe.

Garba announced that one of the patients died at UMC. The other died on the way to the hospital.

According to the state Ministry of Health, the total Coronavirus deaths in Kano state has now risen to 82, with 11 new cases and 3,047 total confirmed cases, of which 359 cases are very active.

Dr Tijjani Hussaini, who is the Coordinator of COVID-19 Technical Response Team, called for caution, saying the positivity of the new variant of the virus in Kano is 13 cases out of 100 tests, adding that it has increased the number of patients requiring oxygen.

The Information Commissioner said the state government shut down the UMC hospital to check the excesses of its management staff, who allowed the admission of severe cases of COVID-19 instead of referring such cases to designated isolation centres.