Health experts demand separate hospital for Corona patients

While cases of coronavirus are on the rise in Islamabad, health experts have demanded the allocation of a separate hospital for the treatment of corona.

Maj. Gen. Amir Ikram, executive director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said that although it is difficult for developed countries to set up separate hospitals for specific diseases, the coronavirus has provided the opportunity.

"We are setting up a 250-bed hospital in Chak Shahzad for coronavirus patients," he said.
The construction of the hospital has been delayed due to rains but I hope it will be completed overnight.

"It will then be used to treat patients with the coronavirus and later replicate such hospitals across the country," he said.

Dr. Qaiser Sajjad, general secretary of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), said special hospitals needed time.

"The same mistake was made in Italy, where patients with coronavirus and other (diseases) were kept in the same intensive care unit," he said.

"Unfortunately, several hospitals are treating coronavirus patients at the same time, making it difficult to get beds and ventilators," he said.

"On January 22, the PMA wrote a letter to health officials asking them to set up a separate hospital for the coronavirus, so that even an ambulance driver would know where to transport the patient," he said.

"Unless we have separate hospitals, we should set up an integrated system so that patients do not die due to lack of beds," he said.

Dr. Wasim Khawaja, a spokesman for the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), similarly emphasized the need to separate hospitals: one that treats the only corona avers patients and the other that treats everyone.

The same hospital should not treat coronavirus and other diseases at the same time, he said.

"If all cases of the coronavirus have to be treated in PIMS, all other health services should be suspended for the time being so that the virus can be transmitted to other patients and to staff who do not treat people infected with the virus," he said. To prevent it from spreading among the people.

He added that Federal General Services and Capital Development Authority hospitals can treat diseases other than corona.

Dr. Wasim Khawaja said it was time to protect all healthcare personnel in whom the coronavirus was slowly spreading.

"Medical professionals should be protected so that they can treat others," he said.

He said that most of the coronavirus patients admitted to hospitals in Islamabad are not locals of the city and such patients should be sent back to their home areas or residential districts where they can be kept in isolation and treated.

"If the patient is not a local from Islamabad, it will be a huge burden on PIMS. Coronavirus patients should be distributed according to their residential address," he said.