Nishtar Hospital Covid ward filled to capacity
A man adjusts a bed inside the office of Indian businessman Kadar Shaikh, who converted his business premises into a coronavirus ward for the poor after recovering from the illness. PHOTO: AFP
Multan Nishtar Hospital has reached its maximum capacity of housing coronavirus patients and now faces a dearth of ventilators for its critical patients, official sources confirmed on Thursday.
As many as 11 Covid-19 deaths were recorded by the hospital within a span of two days.
These revelations were made by the doctors during Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Multan’s emergency press conference.
PMA President Dr Masood Rauf along with Dr Rana Khawar, Dr Zafar Malik, Dr Sheikh Abdul Khaliq, Dr Sharif Shahid, Dr Zulqarnain Haider, Dr Khurram Malik, Dr Waqar Niazi, Dr Qamar Abbas and Dr Amjad Malik addressed a joint press conference in which they demanded the government to prevent congregations and rallies in light of growing pandemic infection rate.
The PMA president said the purpose of the press conference was to highlight the ground reality of the hospital as the second wave of the pandemic wreaks havoc.
“At present, around 190 patients of coronavirus are admitted in 12 wards of Nishtar Hospital Multan,” he asserted, claiming that Multan district currently tops the list of coronavirus-affected areas in Punjab.
He also said that the district also ranks first in Pakistan in terms of the number of patients on ventilators due to which new patients cannot be put on ventilators for recovery.
Dr Masood Rauf said that the Nishtar University administration completely failed in implementing the SOPs despite the worsening situation.
“About 3,000 patients come to Nishtar Hospital OPD every day where there is no regard paid to social distancing.”
PMA Multan urged the top officials to implement safety protocols to protect the lives of health practitioners who are extremely threatened by the latest outbreak of the deadly virus.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 27th, 2020.