Observer Report
An alarming situation is developing in Karachi where half of the beds at the city’s public and private hospitals’ Coronavirus wards have now been occupied with ‘serious patients’ of the infection, it was learnt on Sunday.
At least five leading public and private hospitals in the metropolis are denying admission to patients after becoming saturated by Coronavirus cases.
The hospitals are directing them to other places. Cases of the infection are surging across the province, as 17 more people succumbed to Coronavirus and another 1,199 cases tested positive in a single day on Saturday.
However, the Coronavirus death toll has climbed up to 2,816 across the province.
Out of the 500 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds in Karachi, around 260 are filled with COVID-19, according to officials associated with COVID-19 management in Sindh.
They added that in some of the leading public and private health facilities, all the ICU, High Dependency Unit (HDU), and ward beds had become full of patients and they are directing them to other health facilities.
“Indus Hospital Karachi, Aga Khan University Hospital, Ziauddin Hospital, Liaquat National Hospital, and Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation have become overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients,” said Prof. Dr Abdul Bari Khan, a member of Sindh Chief Minister’s COVID-19 Task Force.
According to official figures, there were around 13,886 active COVID-19 cases in the province till Saturday morning, of whom 13,333 were at home isolation while 544 patients were admitted to different health facilities. Of them, the condition of 477 was serious while 62 were on life support.
Khan, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Indus Health Network (IHN), maintained that Covid-19 positivity had increased five-fold in the province, from 2% to above 10% — which means that of the 10,000 or above tests being conducted daily, over 1000 people were infected with Coronavirus, especially in Karachi and Hyderabad.
“Fortunately, 90% of the infected people remain uninfected but the remaining 10 percent are coming with serious health conditions.”
Although during this second wave, most of the people are getting treatment at home through telemedicine, using oxygen, and supportive treatment but still the number of seriously sick is on the rise, and now up to 50% of the beds at the city’s hospitals are occupied with serious patients,” he added.
