ISLAMABAD: With 5,500 cases of Covid-19 and around 100 deaths reported across the country, the medical fraternity fears that the health sector may collapse as a large number of healthcare providers have been infected.

The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has urged the government to change its policy under which only doctors working in quarantine facilities and isolation wards are entitled to personal protective equipment (PPE), arguing that all healthcare providers are equally vulnerable.

The association has also told doctors to ignore suggestions to self-isolate if they have not tested positive, because this would put thousands of patients at risk.

PMA Secretary General Dr Qaisar Sajjad told Dawn that the association warned in January that the situation could deteriorate, but the government did not give heed.

“It is unfortunate that to date, the government is not willing to accept that all healthcare providers need PPE and they are also vulnerable,” he said.

Govt urged to change policy of only providing PPE to healthcare providers working in quarantine, isolation facilities

On Sunday, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr Zafar Mirza said that healthcare providers should end the “irrational” use of PPE. He said such equipment, and N-95 masks in particularly, were being used incorrectly and that only doctors who need N-95 masks should wear them as the irrational use would be a loss for those who need them.

Dr Sajjad said that 38 healthcare providers, including 17 doctors, have tested positive for Covid-19 at the Nishtar Medical Hospital in Multan.

“Initially, a doctor in the nephrology department contracted the virus from a kidney patient who had no symptoms of Covid-19, and then the virus began spreading across the hospital,” he said.

He said that six doctors and eight paramedics have tested positive at the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Trauma Centre and Civil Hospital in Karachi. Both hospitals also have 13 suspected patients.

Another two doctors tested positive at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, and a doctor at Liaquat National Hospital who participated in the Tableeghi Jamaat ijtima has also tested positive, he said.

“An ENT professor who works at the Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar has been placed on a ventilator due to Covid-19. In Lahore, a gynaecologist who performed a cesarean delivery learned that the husband of the woman had just returned from abroad, because of which she suggested to the couple to go for Covid-19 test. Both the husband and the wife tested positive and the gynaecologist was quarantined. This shows that doctors working in other departments are also vulnerable,” he said.

Dr Sajjad added that a number of confirmed patients are asymptomatic, which means they do not have any symptoms, adding: “Such patients can transfer the disease to more people.”

He said that some doctors have suggested that they self-isolate to protect themselves, but the PMA has appealed that they do not because doing so would lead to a collapse of the entire health system.

“We fear the situation could become worse in the coming days, as 300 cases of Covid-19 were across the country on Monday,” he said.

At a press conference on Monday, Dr Mirza said 52pc of Covid-19 cases in the country were the result of local transmission, which is why it has been decided to begin proactive testing.

He said that initially, the National Institute of Health was the only laboratory that had the capacity to carry out Covid-19 tests, but that number has now increased to 27.

“Seven more labs will be functional in a few days,” he said, adding: “There was also an issue of the availability of testing kits, but we now have 600,000 kits and by April 15 that number will surpass one million. We are currently conducting 3,000 tests every day, but by the end of the month we will start conducting 20,000 to 25,000 tests every day as we require 600,000 testing kits every month.”

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2020