JUST IN: Sanwo-Olu Approves #COVID-19 Vaccination In Private Hospitals N6000—–The Governor Sanwo-Olu Led Administration on Sunday said those who wish to receive COVID-19 vaccines within the comforts of a private facility can do so at a minimal administrative cost of N6,000.
The Genius Media Nigeria reports that this was made known by the state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, in a statement on Sunday, saying: the charges would cover the cost that the private sector would incur to facilitate the administration of the vaccine which includes logistics, personnel, quality oversight, administrative and overhead costs.
Abayomi noted that the cost would be proportionally lower for a single dose or those wishing to take a single booster dose.
He said, “The public-private partnership is similar to the strategy we deployed for escalating our COVID-19 testing which resulted in a dramatic increase in testing done in Lagos from an average of 200 a day to over 2,000 a day culminating in a total of 800,000 tests in less than a year and Lagos State accounting for more than 30 per cent alone of all COVID-19 PCR tests done in Nigeria. This demonstrates the power of public-private partnerships, with the inclusion of the significant capacity of the private sector but the government retaining strict regulatory oversight and quality function.
“With this approach, we intend to ramp up our vaccination strategy using the existing public facilities as well as the inclusion of some private facilities. It is imperative to emphasise that the vaccines administered in public facilities is free and would remain free to the public as they were contributed to us by the Federal Government and our donor partners, those wishing to receive the vaccines can go to any of the designated 206 government facilities and receive their dose free of charge.
“However, those that wish to receive the vaccines within the comforts of a private facility can do so at a minimal administrative cost of N6,000 for two doses which cover the cost that the private sector will incur to facilitate the administration of the vaccine which includes logistics, personnel, quality oversight, administrative and overhead costs. The cost will be proportionally lower for single dose or those wishing to take a single booster dose.
“I wish to note that no one is compelled to receive their vaccines at any private facility as the vaccines in both are of the same quality and brand. We have also invested in training of our public personnel so that the customer experience in our public facilities would be matched equally with that of the private sector.”
Abayomi added that the decision to leverage on the private sector was based solely on our resolve to include private health facilities and corporate institutions as additional sites for the COVID-19 vaccination administration.
