KARACHI: Bitterly criticizing the federal and provincial governments and political parties for their failure to implement the Covid-19 SOPs in the country, leading health experts of the country on Monday claimed that there was no space left at the ICUs and High Dependency Units (HDUs) of leading public and private health facilities in Karachi as the number of patients requiring hospitalization is constantly on the rise.
The health experts associated with Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) further said hundreds of doctors and paramedics had lost their lives due to Covid-19 in the country, with deaths of senior doctors on Monday in Karachi alone and added that hundreds of doctors had themselves contracted the disease and were unable to perform their duties and responsibilities at the health facilities.
They said if people, political parties and the traders fail to follow SOPs and continue ignoring the warnings of health experts and professionals, they would demand for a complete lockdown in the country with closure and suspension of all the activities as the health system can not bear the pressure and growing numbers of Covid-19 patients anymore.
"We are in the middle of second wave of Covid-19, which is proving to be highly lethal. We are running out of space and beds at our leading health facilities in Karachi. A complied list indicates that there were no bed available at the ICUs and HDUs of nine leading hospitals in Karachi three days back," Prof Sohail Akhtar, a leading pulmonologist associated with Indus Health Network (IHN) and former president of PIMA told a news conference at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Monday.
Accompanied by other senior doctors including Dr Misbahul Aziz, Dr Fayyaz Alam, Dr Atif Hafeez, Dr Zeeshan Ansari, Dr Saqib Ansari and Dr Imran Hamid; Prof Sohail Akhtar strongly criticized the federal and provincial government for their failure to get Covid-19 related SOPs implemented and deplored that all types of gatherings, rallies and mass events were being held without following any kind of SOPs or precautionary measures.
"The Covid-19 positivity has reached up to 10 percent which was only 2 percent in Sep and Oct 2020. It means that now if we screen 100 people in a single day, 10 of them are tested positive for Covid-19. Daily thousands of people are getting tested positive, of which hundreds are requiring hospitalization, which is becoming immensely difficult these days", Prof Akhtar added.
The former PIMA president claimed that dozens of people were daily dying at the homes in Karachi and other parts of the country as there were hundreds of people, who required hospitalization but due to unavailability of space at the major public and private hospitals, they could not get a chance to be treated by the qualified and trained physicians.
"In these circumstances, we urge the people to take this disease seriously and follow SOPs. All mass gatherings should be banned including political rallies, large shopping centers should be closed and weddings should be cancelled", he added.
Another former PIMA president Prof Misbahul Aziz said hardly 20 percent people were wearing masks on the streets, which is extremely shameful practice and demanded the government to use whatever measures possible including imposition of heavy fines, legislation or penalties to make the wearing of masks mandatory outside homes.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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