Covid-19 death toll hits 575 as 14 more die in KP

PESHAWAR: Fourteen more people died of coronavirus in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday, raising the toll from the viral infection to 575, the highest number of people died from the disease anywhere in the country.

Also, 486 more people were diagnosed with Covid-19 in the province, bringing the total number of positive cases to 13,487. The number of fatalities as well as positive cases is however stated to be much higher than the official figures released by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department every day. The report is based on information of patients admitted to hospitals and died there.

The majority of patients avoid going to hospitals, particularly in Swat and other parts of the Malakand Division as well as in other rural areas, with patients and their attendants complaining that the doctors don’t want examine them.

Similarly, all patients brought to hospitals with serious complications are treated as corona patients, without even being carefully examined or investigations by the doctors.

There is a general misconception that once you entered the hospital with any health complication, the doctors would declare you a corona patient. In KP’s oldest and largest public sector hospital- Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), the patients, their attendants as well the doctors have been complaining that PCR test results of the indoor patients haven’t been released since June 2, 2020.

“LRH is the largest hospital with hundreds of doctors working here and where the government had spent billions of rupees in the last few years but mismanagement and poor administration wasting public resources. Khyber Teaching Hospital is a small hospital with little resources, but PCR reported is given to the patient in two hours,” a senior consultant told The News. In the official WhatsApp group of the LRH, the faculty members held medical director, Dr Suleman Khan responsible for the mismanagement and problems faced by the patients there.

The doctors said patients had not been given their PCR reports since June 2, wasting public resources as patients had occupied beds waiting for their reports. Also, the faculty members said that LRH should have played a leading role in the corona pandemic, but the poor administration and lack of team work didn’t let it happen.

“If there is any independent clinical audit, some people in LRH might face serious punishment. Some of them could even lose their PMDC licenses,” said the consultant.

The doctors in the LRH WhatsApp group said that LRH should have initiated plasma facility but since it failed to professionally handle the corona pandemic, therefore it lost trust of the patients as well as of the government.

The Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) is the only hospital in the province that started the plasma facility. The issue of delaying PCR reports to patients in LRH was brought into the notice of Health Minister Taimur Jhagra and he said he would investigate it.

Meanwhile, of 14 patients died of Covid-19, seven of them belonged to Peshawar, 2 Bajaur, 1 each to Nowshera, Mardan, Dir Lower, Malakand and Kohat.

With the seven deaths reported on Sunday, the death toll from Covid-19 in Peshawar reached 307. It is still ahead of all other districts in the country in terms of fatalities from the viral infection. Of 486 positive cases, Peshawar contributed alone 217. It has reported 4974 positive since outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

Two other districts including Mansehra and Abbottabad each reported 38 cases. Nowshera reported 36 cases, Mardan 30, Swabi 26, Kurram 24, Shangla 16, Haripur 14, Dera Ismail Khan 12. Dir Lower 10, Swat and Buner and Tank four each. Also, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday made it compulsory for all the people to wear facemasks if they wanted to go to any public sector hospital in the province.

The government in a notification said that people without wearing face masks would not be given access to any hospital in KP.