Relief organisation offers medical supplies, PPE, IPC training to Sindh govt

A Pakistani relief organisation with donors spread all over the world has offered to provide essential medical supplies and personal protective equipment to the Sindh government to deal with the ongoing outbreak of coronavirus, which has become pandemic in the world. It says it is also ready to help train the staff of public health facilities on infection prevention and control (IPC) in the province.

“We can provide essential medical supplies and relief items in addition to personal protective equipment (PPE) to the Sindh government if we are formally approached and asked for the supplies by the authorities. We have donors spread all over the world, who are ready to send us medicines, medical supplies and personal protective equipment, including masks, protective overalls, face shields and gloves,” said Syed Gohar Ali Shah, an official of the Poverty Eradication Initiative (PEI), while talking to The News on Tuesday.

The PEI has already donated a large quantity of PPE to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) Pakistan for providing the material and equipment to the hospitals and health facilities in Sindh and ready to provide required health supplies to provincial health and other departments if approached.

The relief organisation said they were already training healthcare providers on infection prevention and control (IPC), a key area in preventing spread of infectious diseases like HIV, hepatitis and most importantly, coronavirus outbreak, and added that their role would help the provincial authorities in slowing down and containing the spread of virus in the country, especially in the Sindh province.

“The Poverty Eradication Initiative is already training the healthcare providers and hospital staff on infection prevention and control and our expertise in this area can help contain and slow down the spread of COVID-19 in the province. We don’t want any funds like some other non-governmental organisations. All we need is official correspondence and recognition so that we could satisfy our donors and supporters, who are Pakistanis living abroad,” Shah said.

He said they were working in the health sector for several years now and they had provided medical supplies and equipment to both provincial and federal governments in the country, adding that many public health facilities were benefitting from the support extended to them by the PEI, which acquired these supplies and equipment from abroad.

“Recently, we donated a handsome quantity of personal protective equipment to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Pakistan, which they supplied to different hospitals and health facilities in the country. WHO has acknowledged this contribution in the global situation report while they have also felicitated us on our contribution,” said Shah, who is the general manager (operations) of the PEI, said.

In its Situation Report of March 5, 2020 on COVID-19 Updates, WHO said: “Poverty Eradication Initiative (PEI) have donated PPEs including N-95 masks, gowns, full body suit examination gloves and face shields to WHO.”

“In these circumstances when hospitals in entire Sindh are facing an extreme shortage of medical supplies and personal protective equipment, PEI can be of great help if we are approached and apprised of specific requirements. At the moment, we have thousands of masks and other personal protective equipment available but unfortunately, Sindh health department is uninterested in the opportunity,” Shah said but vowed to support facilities and organisations which needed support and supplies to help people in distress.