Quarantine centre established at RIUKT
Isolation centre set up at BBH Psychiatric Ward
PHOTO: FILE
RAWALPINDI/ISLAMABAD:
The Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplant (RIUKT) has been declared as a quarantine centre, while the Psychiatric Ward in the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) has been converted into isolation ward and filter clinic for the coronavirus patients.
The complete building of RIUKT and the whole block in BBH will be available for the patients of the pandemic, according to the directives issued by the Punjab government.
Subsequently, under new standard operating procedures (SOPs), the suspected patients, quarantined in different isolation facilities in Rawalpindi, would be shifted to RIUKT if they were tested positive for the COVID-19. The only COVID-19 patient tested positive in the district, Noor Zaib, has been shifted there too.
Officials said that Zaib was in a stable condition. Meanwhile, three patients suspected to have contracted COVID-19 have been discharged from the BBH isolation ward. Two of them had arrived from Italy, the country with the highest death toll due to coronavirus.
COVID-19 lockdown to leave people jobless, businesses closed in Pakistan
Furthermore, the Rawalpindi District Health Authority (DHA) has established quarantines in seven tehsil headquarters hospitals, rural health centres as well as in three universities.
Some 12 Rawalpindi locals, who went to Iran on pilgrimage and currently staying in an isolation facility in Dera Ghazi Khan, would be once against kept in isolation and tested for pandemic virus upon their arrival in hometown, District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Ahsan Ghani said. He added that all pilgrims would reach Rawalpindi within the next three days where they would be tested again. Following their tests’ results, the administration would decide to either release them or extend their stay in the isolation facility.
Inmates to be bailed
In an effort to reduce the number of people locked up in Adiala Jail, the district administrations in Islamabad and Rawalpindi alike have started granting bails on fast track.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench have issued directives to consider the situation as releasing prisoners on Eid when bails were easily facilitated for people facing a sentence of one month to seven years.
Subsequently, the lower courts have started granting bails in cases of petty crime cases while the hearing on some 219 petitions seeking clemency would start from March 23. Officials told The Express Tribune learnt that the district courts freed some 51 suspects on parole during the past two days. The highest number of prisoners among 5,793 inmates in Adyala jail is from all seven tehsils of Rawalpindi. Most of them were detained in cases pertaining possession of drugs or liquor, gambling on PSL, disruption of peace, kite flying during basant and such misdemeanors.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench have sought details of all such prisoners while it was expected that around 3,000 people will walk of jail until March 28.
Moreover, all 30 police stations in the Rawalpindi district have been instructed to grant bails in cases where the police were entitled to do it.
Price magistrates opt for substitutes
Fearing contraction of virus, the district price magistrates have confined themselves to the offices and started sending peons, security guards and lower grade employees to monitor price control in the markets.
The market people were already irked over the arbitrariness of the magistrates, however, being checked and penalised by a peon has sent their tempers flying. Is there any standard procedure of law, a shopkeeper said talking to The Express Tribune.
The bureaucrats don’t consider the market forces that set the price and issue fine to shopkeepers instead of wholesalers and now they were sending peons and gatekeepers who have absolutely no knowledge of price mechanism, he said.
This self-isolation of magistrates has triggered fights between the grocers and the substitute officials. The representative bodies of Rawalpindi traders have demanded Deputy Commissioner (DC) Anwarul Haq take notice of the situation. In this regard, the representatives of the business community including President Karyana Merchant Association Pervaiz Butt and President Anjuman Tajiran Sabzi Mandi Ghulam Qadir Mir complained that the substitute employees arrived on their motorbikes and leave after imposing heavy fines without any concrete reasons.
Sindh revises COVID-19 figures to 292, apologises for ‘counting error’
They hinted at the possibility of frequent altercations in the bazaars due to this practice. They asserted that the district administration seeks the support of the business community on one hand and resort to imposing heavy fines on the other. The officials hinted at observing a shutter-down strike if the situation stood still.
Another five schools sealed
The education department on Saturday sealed some five private schools in Rawalpindi that were opened despite the ban. The officials have also imposed fines on them. The teaching staff was present in all educational institutions. All the schools across the province are closed until April 5 as a preventive measure against the coronavirus.
Development work halts
The pandemic has grinded several development projects in pipelines to a halt in Rawalpindi. The work on five new dams, two hospitals and around 270 other development schemes of different nature have been stopped. All the officials overseeing these projects have been barred from visiting the projects’ sites until April 5. The contractors have gone on vacations too. Sources in the Rawalpindi tehsil council claimed that the development work would start in full swing from mid of April.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 22nd, 2020.
The Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplant (RIUKT) has been declared as a quarantine centre, while the Psychiatric Ward in the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) has been converted into isolation ward and filter clinic for the coronavirus patients.
The complete building of RIUKT and the whole block in BBH will be available for the patients of the pandemic, according to the directives issued by the Punjab government.
Subsequently, under new standard operating procedures (SOPs), the suspected patients, quarantined in different isolation facilities in Rawalpindi, would be shifted to RIUKT if they were tested positive for the COVID-19. The only COVID-19 patient tested positive in the district, Noor Zaib, has been shifted there too.
Officials said that Zaib was in a stable condition. Meanwhile, three patients suspected to have contracted COVID-19 have been discharged from the BBH isolation ward. Two of them had arrived from Italy, the country with the highest death toll due to coronavirus.
COVID-19 lockdown to leave people jobless, businesses closed in Pakistan
Furthermore, the Rawalpindi District Health Authority (DHA) has established quarantines in seven tehsil headquarters hospitals, rural health centres as well as in three universities.
Some 12 Rawalpindi locals, who went to Iran on pilgrimage and currently staying in an isolation facility in Dera Ghazi Khan, would be once against kept in isolation and tested for pandemic virus upon their arrival in hometown, District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Ahsan Ghani said. He added that all pilgrims would reach Rawalpindi within the next three days where they would be tested again. Following their tests’ results, the administration would decide to either release them or extend their stay in the isolation facility.
Inmates to be bailed
In an effort to reduce the number of people locked up in Adiala Jail, the district administrations in Islamabad and Rawalpindi alike have started granting bails on fast track.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench have issued directives to consider the situation as releasing prisoners on Eid when bails were easily facilitated for people facing a sentence of one month to seven years.
Subsequently, the lower courts have started granting bails in cases of petty crime cases while the hearing on some 219 petitions seeking clemency would start from March 23. Officials told The Express Tribune learnt that the district courts freed some 51 suspects on parole during the past two days. The highest number of prisoners among 5,793 inmates in Adyala jail is from all seven tehsils of Rawalpindi. Most of them were detained in cases pertaining possession of drugs or liquor, gambling on PSL, disruption of peace, kite flying during basant and such misdemeanors.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench have sought details of all such prisoners while it was expected that around 3,000 people will walk of jail until March 28.
Moreover, all 30 police stations in the Rawalpindi district have been instructed to grant bails in cases where the police were entitled to do it.
Price magistrates opt for substitutes
Fearing contraction of virus, the district price magistrates have confined themselves to the offices and started sending peons, security guards and lower grade employees to monitor price control in the markets.
The market people were already irked over the arbitrariness of the magistrates, however, being checked and penalised by a peon has sent their tempers flying. Is there any standard procedure of law, a shopkeeper said talking to The Express Tribune.
The bureaucrats don’t consider the market forces that set the price and issue fine to shopkeepers instead of wholesalers and now they were sending peons and gatekeepers who have absolutely no knowledge of price mechanism, he said.
This self-isolation of magistrates has triggered fights between the grocers and the substitute officials. The representative bodies of Rawalpindi traders have demanded Deputy Commissioner (DC) Anwarul Haq take notice of the situation. In this regard, the representatives of the business community including President Karyana Merchant Association Pervaiz Butt and President Anjuman Tajiran Sabzi Mandi Ghulam Qadir Mir complained that the substitute employees arrived on their motorbikes and leave after imposing heavy fines without any concrete reasons.
Sindh revises COVID-19 figures to 292, apologises for ‘counting error’
They hinted at the possibility of frequent altercations in the bazaars due to this practice. They asserted that the district administration seeks the support of the business community on one hand and resort to imposing heavy fines on the other. The officials hinted at observing a shutter-down strike if the situation stood still.
Another five schools sealed
The education department on Saturday sealed some five private schools in Rawalpindi that were opened despite the ban. The officials have also imposed fines on them. The teaching staff was present in all educational institutions. All the schools across the province are closed until April 5 as a preventive measure against the coronavirus.
Development work halts
The pandemic has grinded several development projects in pipelines to a halt in Rawalpindi. The work on five new dams, two hospitals and around 270 other development schemes of different nature have been stopped. All the officials overseeing these projects have been barred from visiting the projects’ sites until April 5. The contractors have gone on vacations too. Sources in the Rawalpindi tehsil council claimed that the development work would start in full swing from mid of April.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 22nd, 2020.