PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Young Doctors Association has expressed concerns over growing number of Covid-19 patients and asked the government to focus on the infected people and make immediate arrangements for additional beds and ventilators to ensure their effective management at the hospitals.

In a statement on Sunday, YDA president Dr Rizwan Kundi said that people were rushing their critically-ill relatives to hospitals but they were not admitted owing to non-availability of beds.

The government, he said, should immediately arrange beds along with ventilators to cope with the influx of serious patients as the number people affected by the virus was increasing at an alarming pace. He said that time was not away when people would die outside hospitals for want of beds.

Dr Rizwan said that government should strengthen the district and tehsil level hospitals and link them with the medical teaching institutions for technical assistance to manage the patients in their areas effectively and lessen burden on the Peshawar-based hospitals.

The YDA president said that more than 400 doctors were infected with Covid-19 owing to shortage of personal protective equipment. If the situation remained the same, there would be extreme shortage of healthcare providers when the disease reached its peak in the coming days, he added.

He said that Postgraduate Medical Institute (PGMI) should induct 1,300 doctors, who were waiting for postgraduate training since long, to strengthen the healthcare system in those trying times.

Dr Rizwan said that specialist doctors should be exempted from general duty to safeguard them against infection so their services could be utilised in time of emergency.

He also expressed concerns over incidents of violence against health professionals at the hospitals and demanded that Ranger or army should be deployed to provide security to the doctors to ensure best care of the Covid-19 patients.

“We ask government to enforce the proposed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Healthcare Service Persons and Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act in the shape of ordinance, otherwise, medics would be left with no option but to leave the hospitals in the face of repeated acts of violence against them,” said the YDA president.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2020