Millions of rupee medical tools may be ‘pilfered, wasted’

KARACHI: The Sindh government seems to have worked in a bizzare way of distributing millions of rupee worth medical and non medical equipment to the Covid-19 hospitals and ICUs it received from the NDMA and private donors, without maintaining an inventory of it. This is now raising fears in the government circles if at all the entire equipment was deployed in the first place or if the individual hospitals or field units pilfered away the millions of rupee worth medical and non medical equipment.

The apprehensions have come to fore following a Sindh health department notification directing closure of Covid-19 field hospitals, ICUs, HDUs and Quarantine centers. The provincial health department now wants to disperse the medical and non medical equipment to other hospitals of the province. However, before doing so, it has instructed the hospitals and field units to submit an inventory of the said equipment.

Over 542 Intensive Care Units ICUs, 1,895 High Dependency Units HDU, and more than 8,600 quarantine beds were installed by the Sindh government for corona treatment at the Expo Center, Karachi, field hospital, ICU Units, High Dependency Units, and Quarantine centres for managing the pandemic in a disorganized fashion. There was no one-window operation and the millions of rupee worth equipment provided by the provincial government, NDMA, commissioners and individual donors went to different facilities ‘unrecorded’.

The notification was issued on August 2 and had set a week-long deadline to complete the inventories. The Sindh government has established a four-member committee headed by Mustaque Soomro and includes

Daadlo Zohrani, Dr Sikander Memon and Dr Zafar Mehdi. In the first phase, the panel will finalise collection of inventory of the medical and non medical equipment from the Expo Center, Karachi, and other Corona Specific ICU, HDU and Quarantine centres, before any distribution is carried out.

It is questionable that the health department and Covid-19 facilities do not have any inventory of the equipment deployed at their respective installations, raising fears of its wastage or pilferage at the time of national health emergency.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Medical Association has warned the government that before packing away the Covid-19 medical and non medical equipment, they should pay attention to the fact that the pandemic is not entirely over and a second wave of the lethal global virion is expected within two months time.

Advising against premature lowering the guard, the doctors are suggesting that since the cases have begun to multiply in the aftermath of Eidul Azha, it is feared that following Muharram and Rabiul Awwal, the number of cases may go up further if the SOPS are not strictly followed. Internationally, countries that eased the Covid-19 restrictions suffered resurgence and we must do everything to keep the second wave at bay.