DERA GHAZI KHAN: Poor sanitation and violation of standard operation procedures (SOPs) in the waste disposal arrangements at the quarantine housing hundreds of pilgrims here in Dera Ghazi Khan have attracted vociferous criticism from doctors and the general public.

The Punjab government has established the quarantine at the agriculture campus of the Ghazi University. A local leader of the Dera Ghazi Khan Pakistan Medical Association has drawn the attention of the authorities towards the affairs through social media.

The quarantine established some 20 kilometres from the city housed 800 pilgrims who came here from Iran via Taftan border.

A video message by Dr Amir Abdul Rehman Qaisrani of the teaching hospital of the Ghazi Khan Medical College is doing the rounds online. He says the administration is playing with lives of people by not adopting SOPs meant for quarantine. He condemned poor disposal system and added lives of the lower staff were under severe threat as sweepers were being forced to work in the quarantine without Hazmat suits. He claimed sweepers went to their homes raising the level of risks of the virus spread.

He said there were no separate beds at quarantine as per SOPs. He said infected waste of quarantine was being brought out of the facility without adopting safety measures to the incinerator installed on the premises of Doctors Colony in Dera Ghazi Khan.

He made an appeal to authorities concerned to take notice of the dangerous prevailing situation at the quarantine. Dr Qaisrani maintained that nobody could call such a camp a quarantine.

Also, dwellers of Dera Ghazi Khan expressed their concern after the video showing the waste of quarantine being transported to the incinerator went viral online. The office bearers of of the Young Doctors Association demanded the waste be burnt outside the city.

Health CEO Dr Khalil Sikhani told Dawn the waste would be safely disposed of.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2020