LAHORE: The Covid-19 situation continues to worsen in Lahore’s government teaching hospitals where the load of critical patients is increasing alarmingly, making it hard for the medical experts to manage the critical units.

At the government hospitals, the intensive care units (ICUs) and the high dependency units (HDUs) are the two key facilities where the patients are reporting multiple complications of the infection. The load is said to have increased after the UK variant has hit major cities of the province, especially Lahore which bears the brunt of the third wave of Covid.

Wednesday’s official figures obtained by Dawn portrayed a dismal picture according to which 69.3pc ventilators (ICUs) and 60.7pc HDUs had been occupied by the patients of the virus in the state-run teaching hospitals of Lahore.

Hospitals’ capacity put to test

According to the figures, the Mayo Hospital and Services Hospital are running short of the services provided for Covid management as 78.2pc and 93.7pc ventilators of these two facilities have been occupied by the critical patients. Similarly, out of the total allocated beds for the HDUs in the two teaching hospitals, 87pc and 97.1pc, respectively, are filled.

The situation is not different in other public-sector tertiary care hospitals in the provincial capital. The figures show that 72pc of the ventilators of the Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, 95pc of the Lahore General Hospital and 60pc each of the Government Nawaz Sharif Hospital, Yakki Gate, and the Government Kot Khwaja Saeed Hospital have been occupied.

Worrying reports are emerging from the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI) where all the allocated ventilators at the ICU have been occupied.

About the HDUs of these hospitals of the city, the data shows that 87pc of the total allocated beds in this particular facility of the Mayo Hospital have been occupied, 80.3 of Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, 97.1pc of Services Hospital, 20pc of LGH, and 53.8pc beds at the HDUs of PKLI have been occupied.

The Covid update released the same day showed that 1,774 more people tested positive for the virus in Punjab during the last 24 hours, taking the total count to 202,743. The maximum 1,184 cases were reported from Lahore where the total number of positive cases has reached 106,489. Other cases have been reported from Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Gujrat and Sialkot.

The Covid death toll in Punjab was 6,046 after nine people died of the virus across the province during the last 24 hours.

The medical experts have underscored the need to expand the healthcare services for the treatment of the critical patients at the major teaching hospitals to prevent more deaths. Punjab, they say, is facing the peak of the third wave of the infection.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2021