HYDERABAD: Health Services Sindh has advised Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) management to “redesign its plans for handling active Covid-19 patients who are reporting at its emergency ward with acute respiratory symptoms as well as other complaints”.

In a letter sent to LUH on May 1, Health Services director general Dr Irshad Ahmed Memon questioned quality of service the LUH provided last year and this year. Keeping in mind increase in population and inflow of outside patients to the hospital, the “aforementioned capacity (of LUH) is not encouraging”, he said.

He referred to validation of LUH’s provisions for intensive care and high dependency units reserved for Covid-19 patients needing critical management at LUH by DG’s team on April 30. “It emerged that out of 92 ICU beds equipped with ventilators you [MS] have allocated only 26 for SARs-CoV admission, 18 in LUH Hyderabad and 8 in Jamshoro,” said the letter.

He said that while there were 41 beds in HDU, 17 in LUH Hyderabad and 24 in Jamshoro. Considering population of the city, high prevalence of disease, genome changes (mutation of virus like UK variant) in virus morphology and consequently enhanced rates of spread, morbidity and mortality, increased in-flow of outside patients in LUH and disproportion between substantial level of services it provided in the first last year (March-July 2020), the hospital’s capacity was not encouraging.

“The matter has been taken up by higher authorities,” he said and added that it came to knowledge of the DG that you have recently been provided additional 20 sets of ventilators, 50 positive airway pressure units along with other deliveries by the health department,” said the letter.

He said that health department had issued directives to hospitals to reschedule elective surgeries and allocate more ICU beds for treatment of coronavirus patients.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2021