Services at allied hospitals being restored

Rawalpindi:The extraordinary burden of COVID-19 patients that made Benazir Bhutto Hospital and a number of departments at the allied hospitals as specialized healthcare facilities to deal with cases of coronavirus illness has started diminishing after which the services at the teaching hospitals in town are returning to normalcy.

Benazir Bhutto Hospital that was designated as the specialized healthcare facility by the Punjab government to deal with COVID-19 cases in northern part of the country in the beginning of February and was converted into COVID-19 Management Hospital to exclusively manage COVID-19 patients in the first week of June would start operating all its departments as per previous routine within a day or two. After significant reduction in number of patients being tested positive from Rawalpindi district in last two to three weeks, the burden of COVID-19 patients at the allied hospital including BBH and Holy Family Hospital has decreased and the administration at Rawalpindi Medical University has planned to bring working of the hospitals to normalcy.

In the first week of June, well over 400 confirmed patients of COVID-19 were undergoing treatment at the healthcare facilities including Corona Management Centre at Rawalpindi Institute of Urology, BBH, HFH, Pakistan Red Crescent Society Rawalpindi and a field hospital at Shahbaz Sharif Sports Complex while well over 1200 had been discharged after treatment. On Monday, however only 125 patients were admitted to both public and private healthcare facilities in Rawalpindi district and majority of the patients were undergoing treatment at BBH and CMC at RIU.

After significant decrease in burden of corona patients, the hospitals have planned to operate all their departments as per routine and hopefully, within this week, the BBH and HFH would start rendering services in all their departments, said Chief Executive Officer (Health) Rawalpindi Dr. Sohail Ahmed Chaudhary while talking to ‘The News’ on Monday. He added that as many as 17 patients were tested positive from Rawalpindi district in last 24 hours taking tally to 5,781 of which 5,079 have so far been discharged after treatment while 273 have lost their lives.