FAISALABAD: A man died of coronavirus allegedly after he was denied ventilator at the Allied Hospital.

Hammad Ahmed claimed that his relative being treated at the Allied Hospital died as no ventilator was available for treatment despite his deteriorating condition.

Earlier, a doctor of a state-run hospital had been shifted from the hospital due to shortage of the ventilators. However, the district and hospital administrations said ample ventilators were available for the treatment of the patients.

A couple of days ago, uncles of two doctors of the Allied Hospital died of the disease. Doctors said currently only five ventilators were available for the treatment of the coronavirus patients despite the fact that Faisalabad is the third largest city of Pakistan having population of about 10 million. They said dozens of people with coronavirus symptoms were landing at the hospital but nothing was being done by the administration to improve the level of facilities.

Speaking toDawn, Hammad deplored they could not get ventilator at the medical emergency of the Allied Hospital and his relative Aamir, 45, passed away. He said Aamir was not suffering from Covid-19 although doctors declared him a patient of the virus. He said Aamir had been declared suspect and nothing had been done for his treatment. He said postmortem report of Aamir declared that he had no symptom of coronavirus.

“We had been told by the administration that ventilator might be available in the morning and Aamir passed away after few hours,” he said.

Just a few days ago doctors had staged a protest demonstration outside the office of Faisalabad Medical University Vice Chancellor Dr Zafar Chaudhry for the provision of facilities for the treatment of the patients and protection of doctors as well.

A doctor who treated many Covid-19 patients said the ventilators, oxygen and other equipment required for proper and timely care of the patients were not available most of the time. “We are in a fix as to how to treat the patients and tackle their attendants who lose patience and blame them for the mess,” he said.

Young Doctors Association Faisalabad chapter Secretary Dr Adnan Shakir said the condition of Ahmed’s relative was very critical and he needed the ventilator right away, however, the facility was not available. He said we had given maximum oxygen supply to him to improve his condition but all in vain. He said another patient also died due to unavailability of the ventilator and the patient was relative of a doctor.

He demanded that the government should not waste time to provide the facility of ventilators for the patients.

UAF: The University of Agriculture Faisalabad will enroll students without conducting the entrance test this year for the undergraduate programmes on the basis of their first-year result.

This was decided in the Deans Committee meeting held at syndicate room with UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf in the chair.

It was also decided that the online final examinations for the ongoing semesters would be held from June 22, 2002 . The training of the faculty for conducting the online examinations for the ongoing semesters will be carried out from June 8.

The VC said given the current Covid-19 scenario, the students were getting their courses work, lectures and other related material online at their homes to continue their academic activities.

He said Leaning Management System (LMS), YouTube and Zoom etc were being used by the faculty andstudents for online studies.

Dr Ashraf said the UAF was working actively on the locust problem to ensure the food security in the country.

UAF Registrar/Treasurer Umar Saeed said e-governance system had been put in place on the varsity campus to improve the working conditions.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2020