The field isolation centre at Karachi’s Expo Centre has treated as many as 1,098 patients to date. As the covid-19 pandemic struck the country, the centre was set upto support the health infrastructure. Several other temporary hospitals were established across the country in this regard. The makeshift isolation centre initially had a capacity of 1,200 Covid-19 patients, later reduced to 900 after the establishment of a 140-bed high dependency unit (HDU). According to the centre’s administrator, Brig Muhammad Shehzad, no deaths have been reported in the isolation ward to date, while 10 patients in critical condition succumbed to the virus in the intensive care unit. Currently, 10 people are still under treatment at the facility, he added. He stated that patients were provided with the best possible medical care at the centre, including a healthy diet as well as access to physiotherapists and psychiatrists. “The patients can also meet their family members through a glass wall and talk to them over the phone,” he added. He further claimed that several patients who had regained health at the facility later donated plasma to help others fight the disease and the government had provided all the necessary assistance in this regard, he added. Chest specialist DrWaris, serving voluntarily at the centre, explained that it was initially established just to quarantine people with few symptoms, but the standard of care improved as many of those admitted there needed oxygen as well as ventilators to survive. He further claimed that none of the healthcare workers there had contracted the virus from the patients.
