Medical graduate dies of coronavirus

Young girl was diagnosed with normal flu

RAWALPINDI: A young medical graduate died of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) at Holy Family Hospital on Friday.

The coronavirus does not discriminate about age, gender, religion or ethinicity and strikes randomly at will leaving in its wake death and devastation to families.

In what can only be described as one of the most tragic incidents and puts to rest the illusion that it does not affect the young a young girl who had just earned her medical degree and was yet to start her career with her house-job, succumbed to the coronavirus at Holy Family Hospital (HFH) on Friday bringing the latest death toll to 30 in the Rawalpindi district

The young victim was a resident of the Gujjar Khan area and was yet to start her house-job from May 1 to gain clinical experience.

The HFH Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Shehzad said that the deceased was yet to start her medical career from May 1 with her house-job in Bahawalpur.

He added that on April 20, the victim started feeling symptoms of the pandemic virus after which she rushed to a clinic in Gujjar Khan to get herself examined to see if she had contracted the pandemic virus.

However, the doctors declared that it was just flu and assured the patient that there was nothing to be worried about.

The doctors even told the victim that she did not require going under self-isolation. But, later on April 27, the deceased’s health deteriorated after she was rushed to the HFH. There, the doctors had to move her on a ventilator but she could not recover and died.

MS said that the deceased was buried as per the standard operating procedures (SOPs) devised for the funeral of an infected patient.

The official figures state that currently, some 211 patients are under treatment in the Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplant (RIUKT) and other hospitals.

Meanwhile, the number of patients in the district discharged after full recovery stands at 147. So far, as many as 481 people have been infected with the contagion in the Rawalpindi district.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2020.