Gbajabiamila: Discovery Of COVID-19 Vaccine Not Excuse To Drop Guard

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has said the recent discovery of a COVID-19 vaccine was not enough to make members of the public drop their guard against the dreaded virus.

The Speaker urged Nigerians to continue to take necessary precautions against COVID-19 as the virus was still taking its toll on everyday lives of people around the globe.

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Gbajabiamila spoke at the opening of a two-day training programme he organized for some health workers in Lagos on Sunday.

The programme was themed “Improving Patient’s Outcome Through Ethical Conduct and Professionalism”.

While expressing delight at the discovery of the vaccine, the Speaker noted however that, “Yet we must recognise, and we must continue to act in the knowledge that we are still far from the time when that vaccine will be perfect and readily available to all the people of the world.”

Gbabiamila said the pandemic has continued to have devastating effects on families, communities and countries around the world.

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He also commended health workers for their efforts in fighting the disease, saying: “When the final account of this moment is given, we will not forget to credit the health workers and medical professionals who have helped us here in Nigeria, and others all over the world, to manage and overcome the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Through all of this, our medical professionals have shown exemplary courage and commitment. Their efforts have renewed our faith in the human spirit and shown us that we are, each one of us, capable of extraordinary greatness, of courage beyond measure and goodness beyond what we imagine in ordinary times,” he said.

“This moment also requires that governments at all levels continue to support the training, welfare and wellbeing of the medical professionals who are at the forefront of this existential battle. We owe them that much, and so much more,” he added.

Gbajabiamila said the House of Representatives remained, “committed to increasing the appropriations due to the health sector so that we can remedy the weaknesses of infrastructure and capacity, access and quality that bedevil our national health care system.

“It is also an example of what we can do when we work together, across different levels of government and with the private sector to deliver objectives that serve the best interests of all our citizens.”

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In his speech, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, praised Gbajabiamila for organizing the training programme.

The governor said the gesture showed that the Speaker was passionate about healthcare delivery in the state.

“We’ll continue to ensure that we raise the bar on our health agenda. I’m sure in terms of numbers, you saw how many tests we did for Covid in Lagos. Because we know it’s public health, we’ve done over 120,000 to 125,000 free. So, you can compare to when we brought our private laboratory practitioners.

“It goes to show you that envelope, the size of financial commitment that the state had to make, to make sure that a public health challenge like Covid was not just something that we were glossing over. We faced it right from the beginning.

“Today, it’s about the Speaker, who deemed it fit to say that ‘this is time to look back and give back to a sector that I truly believe in.’ So, Mr Speaker and the Chairman House Committee on Health, we want to thank you for bringing this to Lagos.”

Speaking also, Chairman of the House Committee on Health, Tanko Sununu, commended Governor Sanwo-Olu for taking proactive measures toward containing the coronavirus in the state

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“This training, is very important being about ethics, which is a systematic strategy of what a person’s conduct and actions should be with regards to self, whether humans and the environment, couldn’t have come at a better time than now, when Nigerians, most especially medical and healthcare providers are passing through a lot of stress.

“The training will serve the practitioners with the best conduct expected of them while providing health service with empathy in order to have an excellent outcome for patients”.

The Minister of State for Healthcare, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, lauded Gbajabiamila for organizing the training programme and called for more of such training to ensure continuous capacity building for health workers.

“This training represents the quest and desire for improvement, growth and development in the health sectorn. Any system that has no interest in training programmes for the personnel or fails to give training the importance it deserves has inevitably planned to fail or fizzle out completely

“In order to keep pace with quality delivery of services, there must be deliberate and committed efforts to ensure that continuous training and capacity building remain at the center of the institution’s mandate,” he said.

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