LARKANA: The intensive care unit for serious Covid-19 patients at the Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH) lacks necessary machines, laboratory, drugs and other paraphernalia, which add to suffering of critical patients, according to chairman of Covid-19 treatment committee Prof Dr Hakim Ali Abro.

Dr Abro told Dawn on Tuesday that he had written five letters to Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SMBBMU) registrar, the latest about a week ago, informing him about nine deficiencies in Covid-19 ICU. Both the district administration and medical superintendent too had been informed many times but to no avail, he said.

The ICU lacked arterial blood gases (ABG) machine, BIPAP/CPAP (bi-level positive airway pressure and constant airway pressure) machine, special ICU beds, bedside multipara monitors, central monitoring, dialysis machine, laboratory and drugs, he said.

He said the ICU was running without ABG machine with the result that patients’ samples had to be sent to an outside laboratory, which increased possibility of transmission of infection to the laboratory personnel and public.

He said that a Covid-19 patient was to be treated with BIPAP/CPAP machine first when patient’s oxygen was low and it was avoided to keep him or her on ventilator. “In the absence of these machines we are directly transferring patients to ventilators and we have almost lost all patients put on ventilators,” he noted.

“We face difficulty managing patients on simple beds as we need to keep patient in prone (face down) position which is not possible on these beds,” he said.

“We have 22 ventilators but only 12 had multipara monitors and if number of patients crosses 12, then the rest of the ventilators will be of no use. A dialysis machine is badly needed in the ICU as a patient on ventilator cannot be moved to nephrology unit due to fear of transmission of infection to public,” he said.

He said that MS had not yet responded to the demand for important drugs like injection Tocilizumab which was badly needed for the treatment of critical cases of Coivd-19.

However, the MS rejected Dr Abro’s demands and claimed that all the machines and other paraphernalia were available in the ICU and special beds were being procured by the procurement committee after Sindh government released funds on May 21.

He said the dialysis machines and reverse osmosis plant would be installed within days and most of the tests for patients were being done at CMCH laboratory while tests from private laboratory were being done at CMCH cost.

But Dr Abro disputed the MS’s stance and insisted the situation remained unchanged to this day. On Tuesday he had sent two more letters to the deputy commissioner and the medical superintendent of Chandka Medical College Hospital for putting in place the security measures and providing the required medicines for the ICU, he said. He said the hospital was only bearing expenses of ABG test while patients’ attendants were bearing the cost of other special investigations. He said presently eight serious patients were admitted to the Covid-19 ICU, adding that the number of such cases was increasing with each passing day.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2020