PESHAWAR: The occupancy of ventilators in public sector hospitals has been increasing due to seriously-ill Covid-19 patients as the pandemic killed a nurse in Peshawar, taking the death toll among health workers to 100 in the country.

The number of infected health workers due to coronavirus has crossed 10,000, according to an official report.

Staff nurse Rubina Shaheen, who breathed her last at Naseerullah Khan Babar Memorial Hospital here on Thursday, became the 100th victim of coronavirus, which continues to infect the health workers throughout the country.

A report by National Emergency Centre of the Ministry of Health Regulations and Coordination said that 99 health workers had fallen prey to the virus since early this year in all the provinces with Sindh losing majority of the health workers to the virus.

Sindh has lost 34 healthcare providers, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 24, Punjab 14, Islamabad 10, Balochistan 14, Azad Jammu and Kashmir six and Gilgit-Baltistan has lost three health workers due to the pandemic. It said that 10,119 health workers were diagnosed with Covid-19, which they contracted in the line of duty at the public sector hospitals.

Nationwide statistics show that Covid-19 has infected 6,349 doctors, 2,576 paramedics and other staff and 1,196 nurses. Of them, 9,403 have recovered.

Coronavirus claims life of nurse in Peshawar

According to the report, the ventilators’ occupancy is increasing with every passing day as the hospitals are receiving seriously-ill patients, who require artificial breathing. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 250 ventilators of which 29 per cent have been occupied. The country’s public hospitals have 3,113 ventilators of which 270 on 23 per cent have been filled.

The occupancy of ventilators was 10 per cent a fortnight ago but the latest spike during the second wave has sent to hospitals more critical patients, who were put on mechanical breathing. Islamabad has the highest occupancy of ventilators with 64 per cent, followed by Rawalpindi’s 34 per cent, KP’s 29 per cent and Lahore’s 27 per cent.

In Khyber Teaching Hospital a total of 82 Covid-19 patients have been admitted and 18 of them are on ventilators. In Hayatabad Medical Complex a total o 65 Covid-19 patients have been admitted and eight of them are on ventilators. In Lady Reading Hospital, 12 of the total 45 ventilators have been occupied.

Officials said they increased beds for critical patients at the Peshawar-based hospitals. They said that the hospitals in the hard-hit districts of Abbottabad, Swat and Mansehra were strengthened to deal with the situation.

A total of 120,850 Covid-19 samples from 32 districts at public and private educational institution were collected till November25, out of which 2,740 tested positive with an overall 2.52 per cent positivity ratio since mid-October. The positivity ratio during the last 14 days has been 12.5 per cent in school inmates. Peshawar has the highest number of infection in schools. It has a total of 1,112 cases, Abbottabad has 426, Mansehra has 327, Chitral has 190, Haripur has 122, Khyber and Dera Ismail Khan have 113 each and Dir Lower has 100 cases.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 2.93 per cent case fatality rate (CFR) against the nationwide 2.03 per cent. Peshawar has recorded 633 deaths, Swat 104 and Abbottabad has registered 100 of the total 1,344 deaths occurred due to Covid-19 in the province.

These districts also lead the scorecard of infected persons. Peshawar, which remained the hotspot of coronavirus in the first wave in terms of cases and mortality, continues to lead the province in the second wave as its positivity rate has reached 13.8 per cent.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2020