Health system in Sindh under pressure as Pakistan eases lockdown

A Pakistani journalist wearing a protective facemask uses his mobile phone outside the Aga Khan University Hospital where a patient of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus has been admitted in Karachi on February 26, 2020. (AFP)

• Intensive care unit occupancy in Karachi has already reached 75 percent
• Sindh chief minister considers reintroducing lockdown

KARACHI: Medical authorities in Sindh said they fear the province’s health care system may soon be overwhelmed as Pakistan has eased its coronavirus lockdown.
Sindh’s health minister, Dr. Azra Fazal Pechuho, told Arab News on Tuesday that given the current infection rate, also among medical personnel, the province is running out of hospital beds, ventilators and doctors attending to COVID-19 patients.
“Lockdown is also necessary to reduce the mortality rate, which will increase because of the high presence of comorbidities within our population,” she said, adding that besides coexisting health conditions being common among Pakistani patients, many in the country have low immunity levels due to poor nutrition.
The minister said the occupancy rate in the intensive care units of public health facilities in Karachi has already reached 75 percent and the authorities are in talks with private hospitals to increase the province’s capacity to provide ventilators and beds in high-dependency units.
Pechuho’s concerns are shared by Dr. Qaiser Sajjad, secretary general of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), who said that people do not follow restrictions and if strict lockdown measures are not reintroduced, the outbreak “will go out of control.”
“There will be hardly any ventilators for critical patients, and we will have to choose whether we can save elderly ones or youths,” he said, adding that 767 health workers in Pakistan have already contracted the virus.
“Who will run the health system if such a large number of health staff is infected and there are no beds and ventilators?” he said, adding that to help contain the disease lockdowns do not have to be long, but effectively implemented.
“Had we implemented it effectively for 15 days and extended it for another two weeks, we would have contained the virus,” he said, “But now the easing of lockdown is tantamount to give a boost to the virus. It will go out of control.”
Although procedures and restrictions have been imposed to contain the spread of the disease as business activity is resuming, according to Sindh authorities they have been largely violated as markets are reopening in Karachi — the province’s capital and Pakistan’s main commercial hub.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah told media on Tuesday evening that he may reintroduce the lockdown in the province if safety measures continue to be ignored by businesses and residents.
Nearly 32,700 people have contracted COVID-19 in Pakistan as of Tuesday and 724 have succumbed to the disease. Slightly more than 305,800 people of the country’s 210 million population have been tested for the virus.