CM Usman Buzdar approves 1,000-bed hospital in Expo Centre

LAHORE:Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has approved setting up a field hospital of 1,000-bed capacity at Expo Centre, here and directed the Commissioner Lahore Division to take immediate steps in this regard.

He also announced funds worth around Rs8 billion for the health department and PDMA. On his instructions, the finance department has released the funds on an emergent basis. Meanwhile, the chief minister added that a ministerial committee had been constituted to extend cooperation to the Balochistan government and set up a quarantine facility in Taftan. The Punjab government will immediately provide Rs1 billion to the Balochistan government, he added.

The chief minister also constituted a committee to solve the problems of doctors and other health professionals, adding that encouragement of doctors is necessary as they take care of coronavirus patients. He announced solving the economic problems of daily wage employees and added that provision of salaries to daily wage employees would be continued and they would not be left alone in this difficult situation.

He stated that the telemedicine programme had been started in medical colleges. Announcing to set up chief minister’s fund, Usman Buzdar appealed to the philanthropists to generously donate and assured that every penny would be spent for overcoming the coronavirus.

The chief minister stated that identification of 880 beds had been completed in eight hotels of the provincial metropolis to utilise them in case of need. Work has been started to establish quarantine centres in hotels of other major cities and the provincial ministers have also been assigned duties in different districts. He directed the ministers to immediately visit their assigned districts and take necessary steps.

Usman Buzdar said the federal government would be approached for taking steps to give relief to the people. He said that pilgrims coming from Taftan would be provided with every facility in quarantine centres of Punjab.

He added that 1,250 pilgrims had reached the quarantine centre at Labour Complex in Multan and told that quarantine centres were also being set up in Gujrat, Faisalabad and Taxila. Similarly, floors will be reserved for the treatment of coronavirus patients in private hospitals. So far, 96 patients have been confirmed coronavirus positive in Punjab, he added. Usman Buzdar directed to immediately provide masks and other material to hospitals and disclosed that SOPs had been devised for home-based isolation and a collective mechanism would also be devised in consultation with the federal government. He approved to recruit retired doctors and other staff through walk-in-interviews and added that the Punjab government would recruit them on an emergency basis for the treatment of coronavirus patients. He also directed that there should be no shortage in the supply of food items.

The chief minister was briefed that all the confirmed coronavirus patients has a travel history. The chief minister chaired the meeting of the cabinet committee on coronavirus at his office on Friday to review the steps being taken for overcoming the coronavirus and pondered over different steps to secure the lives of the people. The meeting also reviewed the proposal of air-lifting pilgrims from Iran.

Provincial Ministers Dr Yasmin Rashid, Mian Aslam Iqbal, Hashim Jawan Bakht, Muhammad Akhtar Malik, Mussarat Jamshed MPA, Chief Secretary, IGP, SMBR, ACS (Home) and others attended the meeting.