LAHORE: The Young Doctors Association claims that 34 health professionals have died of Covid-19 in Punjab while 2,500 others tested positive for the virus.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, YDA Punjab President Dr Salman Haseeb said the morale of doctors was very down because of ‘flawed’ policies of the health authorities.

He said no facilities were provided to isolate health professionals in public sector hospitals.

The health professionals hired during the pandemic were not being paid salary, he claimed.

Mr Haseeb said: “The situation is getting from bad to worse due to shortage of space in the intensive care and high dependency units of the government hospitals, particularly in Lahore. The government hospitals across the province have no space for Covid-19 patients. The hospitals are also not conducting tests of the patients who are originally more in number than what is being reported officially.”

He also accused the Punjab government of taking a week in conducting [coronavirus] tests, declaring it one of the major reasons of delay in the treatment of patients and assessing the real disease burden.

He suggested the government to devise a concrete plan to address the challenges.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2020