99 Substandard Health Facilities Sealed In Lagos

HEALTH Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) has closed down 99 health facilities in the last eight months in Lagos for being substandard.

Executive Secretary, HEFAMAA, Dr Abiola Idowu disclosed this during a sensitisation campaign in Epe, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

“Between January and August 2021, the agency has sealed up 99 health facilities due to non-compliance with the set standard and for not registering with the agency.”

“HEFAMAA was established to improve the quality of health care services in Lagos State in both public and private hospitals by enforcing standard and compliance.

“From January to August this year, we have done monitoring in 1,304 facilities, and we have been able to shut about 99 health facilities. In the month of August, we shutdown 17 facilities and the main reason we have shut these facilities was due to non-compliance with the set standard and for some facilities, they are not registered.”

“When a facility is not registered, it is operating illegally, then we have also shut down some facilities that do not have the requisite number of qualified staff. We have shut down facilities because they are training auxiliary nurses and these auxiliary nurses will in turn become a menace to the society by setting up their own health facilities and practising even though they are not licensed to practice.”

Idowu noted that the essence of the sensitisation was to carry out awareness campaign in five local governments, saying that the agency had carried out campaigns in Badagry, Ikorodu and now in Epe.

“The main purpose is to create awareness of the general public. We noticed that the public is also a critical stakeholder but we generally neglected them, so we are trying to reach out to them through this awareness campaign and through their community leaders and the gatekeepers, to let them know the activities of HEFAMAA.