One more doctor falls prey to virus as Pakistan ramps up testing

Ag Agencies

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is ramping up virus testing to 50,000 per day beginning next week amid a mushrooming coronavirus crisis that has claimed the life of another doctor, highlighting the risk healthcare professionals take on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prof Dr Mohammad Javed, who died on Saturday of complications arising out of Covid-19, was an ENT specialist at Peshawar’s Hayatabad Medical Complex. He had contracted the coronavirus a week earlier, and was placed on a ventilator when his condition deteriorated, according to hospital director Dr Shahzad Faisal. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan termed Dr Javed “our real hero”.

Two more female doctors in Peshawar’s Lady Reading hospital were infected with the coronavirus, according to the hospital spokesperson. They were shifted to a quarantine facility.

This comes as Pakistan’s confirmed coronavirus cases exceeded 12,200 cases with 256 deaths nationwide. Health workers have complained for weeks that the country’s hospitals are suffering chronic shortages of safety gear, prompting the arrest of more than 50 doctors who called for more supplies in the city of Quetta earlier this month.

Frontline staff have been left vulnerable, with more than 150 medical workers testing positive for the virus nationwide, according to the Young Doctors’ Association (YDA) in worst-hit Punjab province.

In Lahore, dozens of doctors and nurses launched a hunger strike demanding adequate protective equipment for frontline staff, the lead organiser of the protest said on Saturday. The protesters have kept working in their hospitals while taking turns to demonstrate outside the health authority offices in Lahore.

“We do not intend on stopping until the government listens to our demands. They have been consistently refusing to adhere to our demands,” said doctor Salman Haseeb. Haseeb heads the province’s Grand Health Alliance, which is organising the protest, and he said he had not eaten since April 16. “We are on the frontline of this virus and if we are not protected then the whole population is at risk,” he told AFP.

The alliance said about 30 doctors and nurses were on hunger strike, with up to 200 medical staff joining them each day for demonstrations. Punjab’s health worker union are supporting the alliance and also demanding adequate quarantine conditions for medical staff.

Nearly three dozen doctors, nurses and paramedics contracted the virus in one hospital in the city of Multan, while seven members of a doctor’s family were infected in Lahore, it added. “We are simply demanding justice for our community,” said doctor and YDA chairman Khizer Hayat.

Hospital staff would not escalate their protest by walking off the job, he added. Provincial health department officials told AFP that hospitals had now been provided with adequate protection gear after an earlier “backlog” was resolved.

Meanwhile, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Lt-Gen Muhammad Afzal has said the country will start conducting 50,000 coronavirus tests per day starting next week.

Speaking to journalists, the NDMA chairman said that a meeting held at the National Command and Operations Centre had decided that virus detection kits would be provided to all the concerned departments in the country to enhance testing capacity.

He added that earlier only those people underwent a test who showed symptoms of the virus; however, randomised testing will be done now. The chairman added that at 800,000 kits were available and efforts were being made to procure more of them.