CM Mahmood Khan orders special campaigns for coronavirus SOPs implementation

PESHAWAR: Expressing grave concern over the increasing ratio of coronavirus positive cases, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Friday directed the officials to launch a special campaign for the implementation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and precautionary measures to contain the spread of the pandemic in the province.

He said this while chairing a meeting to review the current situation of coronavirus pandemic in different districts and healthcare capacity for treatment of such patients, said an official handout.

Provincial Minister for Health Taimur Saleem Jhagra, Chief Secretary Kazim Niaz and officials of the health department attended the meeting.

The meeting reviewed in detail the capacity of public sector hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 patients with a special focus on the availability of oxygen in the hospitals.

It was told in the meeting that at present, there was no shortage of oxygen in the major hospitals of the province, adding the health department was regularly monitoring the oxygen supply situation and necessary steps were being taken to ensure timely provision of oxygen where the demand increases.

The chief minister appealed to the citizens to strictly follow the coronavirus SOPs and other precautionary measures, especially the use of facemask, adding that the public cooperation was essential to efficiently deal with the current situation of coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier, briefing about the oxygen availability situation in the major hospitals of province, it was informed that at present oxygen tank capacity at the Hayatabad Medical Complex is 13,000 litres, adding that additional one tank with a capacity of 6,000 litres would be provided within a week.

Similarly, oxygen tank capacity at the Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar is 17,000 litres and one additional tank of oxygen with a capacity of 8,000 litres will be ready in five days adding that 5,000 litres of oxygen was also being added to the existing capacity of 3,000 litres in Mardan Medical Complex.

It was informed that existing oxygen tank capacity of the Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad was 15,000 litres adding that one current tank was being upgraded through which an additional 1,000 litres would be added to the total oxygen capacity of the hospital.

The meeting was told that the number of beds for COVID patients at the public sector hospitals was being increased on the need basis, during the last few weeks some 29 Intensive Care Unit beds, 257 High Dependency Unit beds and 272 low flow beds had been added to beds reserved for COVID patients in tertiary hospitals whereas 116 ICU, 398 HDU and 840 low flow beds would be added in the next weeks.

The participants were informed that average positivity ratio of corona cases in the province was 15.4 per cent, adding that testing capacity has been increased to more than 8,000 tests per day.

In order to ensure implementation of corona SOPs, it was decided to convene a special meeting of Provincial Task Force against coronavirus pandemic and a conference of commissioners and deputy commissioners in the next couple of days.

It was also decided to install an oxygen plant to meet the requirement of oxygen in future at the hospitals.