KARACHI: Rejecting criticism against Sindh’s public health system, Chief Minister’s Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab on Tuesday claimed that there was no shortage of ventilators in public hospitals of the province and the recent death of a Covid-19 positive doctor was not because of lack of ventilators.

He said the provincial government was also building capacity of its health system and adding more technology and facilities to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

“The death of Dr Furqan is so saddening and unfortunate but it’s not due to shortage or unavailability of a ventilator,” he said while speaking at a press conference at the auditorium hall of the Sindh Assembly.

“The chief minister has already initiated an inquiry into that issue and its report would emerge within next few days. So I don’t want to comment on this subject before the inquiry committee completes its job.”

283 ventilators in govt hospitals

However, he continued: “I just want to share the true picture. There are 283 ventilators in government hospitals in Sindh. The Sindh government has decided to buy 250 disposable ventilators. Similarly, the Sindh health department has also decided to buy 163 ventilators.”

Murtaza Wahab says Covid-positive Dr Furqan did not die because of non-availability of ventilators; media support plan launched

He said Sindh was offering 90 per cent free coronavirus tests. Anyone could call the government helpline and get tested at home. The opposition parties were criticising the Sindh government out of frustration after finding the federal government failing miserably in the fight against the global pandemic, he added.

“The problem is that the opponents have been unable to digest the good performance of the Sindh government,” he said. “On February 26, when the first case was reported, the Sindh government had formed a task force. Since then, the Sindh government has set a three-pronged strategy of tracing, testing and treatment. The world knows how things started going wrong at the Taftan border and at airports.”

13 labs can conduct 4,800 tests daily

While referring to the initiatives of the Sindh government, Barrister Wahab said that there were 13 coronavirus testing laboratories in Sindh having a capacity of 4,800 tests per day.

The largest coronavirus testing laboratory in the country was located at the University of Karachi and the Sindh government had decided to increase the capacity of the Karachi University Corona Laboratory to 2,400 tests per day, he added.

“The federal government has not provided any funds to Sindh. Despite all these compulsions, there is no cut applied in the provincial health budget by the Sindh government. We on our own have built coronavirus testing capacity,” he added.

He said that the lockdown was initiated by the Sindh government and the federal government and others only followed the example of the provincial administration.

The people of Sindh, he claimed, had supported the provincial government in difficult decisions.

“The prime minister doesn’t care about poverty and hunger,” he said replying to a question about the federal government’s expected move to ease the lockdown due to growing poverty and hunger.

“He has his own agenda. It’s quite unfortunate that our PTI friends do not understand it. The centre instead of giving some relief or support to the provinces, has even cut the amount we receive through the NFC [National Finance Commission award].”

Sindh govt’s media support plan

Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has said that Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had launched the Peoples Media Support Programme (PMSP) under which all kind of relevant support would be provided to the media.

In statement issued on Tuesday, the provincial minister said that on the directives of PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, payment of liabilities to media owners under the PMSP had already been started.

“Some people have made tall claims that they would come up with a media support programme but they have not done anything till date. Only the PPP government has made the media support programme a reality” he said.

“Besides launching PMSP, assurances have been taken from media owners for two things: First, they would not lay-off their employees and second is timely payments of salaries to their employees. Through the PMSP actually media workers and working journalists have been provided with job security as well as security of on time payments of salaries,” he said.

He said that the process of legislation in this regard was also under way and it would be completed soon.

The Sindh government attached as much importance to working journalists and other media workers as it did to its medical professional including doctors, nurses and paramedical staff.

“The Sindh government has never discriminated in this regard and has always considered people working in both the industries as front-line heroes in the time of a pandemic. Freedom of media as well as welfare of working journalists has always been a priority to every PPP government,” he added.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2020