‘Hospitals under municipal agencies to be upgraded for setting up isolation centres’

The health facilities under the administration of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and other municipal agencies across the province are being upgraded for the provision of testing services and isolation wards to the coronavirus patients, said Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah as he visited the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) Karachi on Sunday.

During his visit, he handed over personal protective equipment (PPE) to the hospital staff for their protection against the COVID-19. The LG minister said a proper mechanism was being evolved to constantly fulfil the needs of the doctors and paramedics of the ASH.

He said equipments were being provided to the KMC-run hospitals so they could have the ability to test the coronavirus suspects.

Similarly, he said. the health institutions of the municipal agencies were being upgraded to use them as isolation centres for the coronavirus patients as it was being done in the case of a major KMC-run health facility in Landhi.

Nasir said the problem of the salaries of the ASH staff would be resolved shortly. He said the doctors and the paramedics were the frontline soldiers in the war against the coronavirus epidemic.

He said the Sindh government, for the time being, had put aside all political differences and had been extending assistance to the federal government for a unified fight against the deadly viral epidemic.

The LG minister said the political differences should back-burnered as the nation needed a united struggle against the COVID-19.

Speaking on the occasion, KMC Senior Medical Director Dr Salma Kausar said the guidelines issued by the Sindh government were being fully adhered to by the staff of the hospitals. The doctor said more KMC-run hospitals were being identified for using them as quarantine facilities.