Ogun State former commissioner for Sports, Hon. Bukola Olopade has shown interest to start a Medical Hero’s Foundation in order to support the welfare of the medical team in Nigeria who are fighting hard to win the war against the corona virus pandemic.
Sports247 gathered that Hon. Olopade few weeks ago told the public that he was tested positive to covid19 but was later discharged after testing negative twice on Wednesday. His recovery from the disease has shown that it is not a death sentence after all.
In an interview with Nigerian Sports Express on Jordan FM, the former commissioner gave account of how he fared on the Lagos health facility as he battled through the process of recovery, saying two things were in his mind as he stayed isolated.
He said the first thing in his mind was to let the people he had been in contact with, particularly those he attended a party with to know about his status because he thought he had to be responsible for them.
In his words, “I have to let people know that I have been diagnosed with Covid-19 so that people can be responsible, to either isolate themselves or also go for check up.” the commissioner said. “To God be the glory everybody that I know have all come back negative including my family, my management team generally.”
Olopade recounts his first few days in the health facility, saying that the first two days left him in a sober mood but was able to adapt from the third day. “It was a thing of two sides because my very first two days there left me in a very sober mood, it was challenging because I was finding my self in a space with a lot of people sharing toilet and bath rooms and I was feeling tired and lethargic from obvious cough and headache.” “But by the third day I adapted to the environment and adopted everything there and I started making new friends like you saw in the video that went viral when I was giving out energy and immune boosting fruit juice, so from there it was just matter of me giving myself out for treatment so that those ridiculous virus will leave my body so I can go back to the society and be myself again.”
Olopade finds the medical personnels highly commendable as he was overwhelmed with the services rendered and the high level of professionalism of the medical staff. “It was just a mixed feeling but then again it was a thing of joy to be around wonderful medical staff, health Care givers who risk their life to make sure we all looked after properly.
As a former youth and sports commissioner, he is highly responsible for a lot of youth, especially in Ogun state. He is a voice of the young populace, as this gave him the reason to come out to declare his status. “The second reason why I came out was because I do have a lot of influence among young people especially in my home state Ogun state and I taught my experience as a Commissioner where I use to interview people on HIV AIDS young people use to laugh at me, saying HIV/AIDS is not real.”
…”It was the same thing that was going to happen to COVID-19 and I taught now that it has happened to someone they have a lot of respect for is talking about it. It was important for me to also show them, that listen guys I have come down with this, the cough was terrible the headache was Scarry therefore please do your social distancing, ensure you wash your hands, respect government and health workers with all the advice they are giving. So getting there, spending three weeks, people die next to my room, people died around me from this COVID-19, there was only one way but to come out of it and extended my explanation or campaign to the level that it will get to far or near so people will understand that it is real.
Hon. Olopade has said that he is doing this for people to understand that Health Care Workers need to be looked after. They are not being looked after and everyone is guilty of this. In his words, “these guys are amazing the way they’ve treated us is humbling, its a life changing experience now.”
Hon. Olopade added “this is why am starting a Foundation immediately called MED HERO’S and am going to take it very far to my rich friends to my media friends, start raising enough money to start helping Health Care Workers so that they should know that they are also loved and cared for not only them caring for us,” he concluded.
So far the world have recorded more that 2.4million cases of covid 19 with about 166 thousand deaths with about 646 thousand people recovering from the illness. Meanwhile Nigeria as at today have recovered 627 cases, having 21 death cases with 170 recovery so far.
