PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has 83 Covid-19 critical patients on ventilators, has still 86 unoccupied ventilators in public sector hospitals that can be utilised in case of surge in serious patients, according to a report.

The province has currently 887 patients in different hospitals due to the infection of coronavirus. The patients include 362 in stable condition and 442 critical with 83 of them on ventilators. Of them, 59 are in Peshawar and the rest are in other cities including Swat, Abbottabad, Mardan, Dear Ismail Khan etc.

The report prepared by Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination said that the number of ventilators in the country was 2,978 and 1,181 of those were specified for Covid-19 patients in the state-run hospitals.

The province has a total of 106 ventilators specified for Covid-19 patients in addition to 55 more which can be utilised in case of need.

The province has 83 coronavirus patients on ventilators

The report said that presently 474 ventilators were occupied by seriously-ill coronavirus patients, who required mechanical ventilation, while 707 or 40 per cent remained unused.

Additionally, there were 1,361 more non-Covid-19 ventilators that could be utilised in case the number of serious patients grew, it said.

The report said that Islamabad topped the ventilators’ occupancy ratio where 70 per cent were under use of the patients while in Peshawar the occupancy ratio of ventilators was 63 per cent. Islamabad has a total of 214 hospitalised patients with 68 of the total 83 serious ones on ventilators while 63 are in stable condition.

It said that Sindh had 1,044 ventilators, the highest number of ventilators available in any province, and 343 were specified for coronavirus patients but only 119 were occupied at the moment while 224 were vacant.

Punjab has 1,362 ventilators of which 530 are specified for Covid-19 patients and 218 are presently occupied while 312 remain unoccupied. Apart from it, the province has 481 ventilators that are presently not dedicated to Covid-19 patients and can be brought into use in case of spike in number of serious patients of the virus.

In Balochistan, 61 ventilators of the total 81 have been specified for Covid-19 patients and 59 are not in use as there are only two critical patients, who are on ventilation. Besides, the province has 20 ventilators other than the dedicated ones that can be used for the management of critical patients if required.

Fourteen of the total 35 ventilators in Gilgit-Baltistan have been specified for the management of Covid-19 patients and only two of them are in use for as many patients currently while the rest are not use.

In Azad Jammu and Kashmir, of the 39 ventilators, 28 are allocated for Covid-19 patients but only one is occupied presently.

The number of nationwide admitted patients is 5,522 and 2,250 of them are critical while 474 are on ventilators. The rest of the patients are in stable condition. Besides, 103,232 patients are in home isolation or elsewhere, while 100,102 have recovered. So far, 4,395 people have died of the disease.

The number of total tests conducted in the country was 1,305, 510 of which 213,470 were positive, said the report covering Covid-19 data till June 30.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2020