Lahore: The provincial capital of Punjab in Pakistan is becoming a ‘hard-to-survive’ city for the COVID-19 patients after its state-run teaching hospitals are running short of beds for them amid a massive surge in the number of serious patients, while the highest number of deaths are also occurring in Punjab every day.

Presently, the corona wards at the major teaching hospitals of Lahore have almost become full, while attendants are running from pillar to post to get their critical COVID-19 patients admitted to public hospitals.

According to official sources, the health authorities are just “befooling” the patients by making claims in the official record regarding “availability of beds in sufficient number” at the teaching institutions, including Jinnah, Services, Mayo and the Lahore General hospitals. However, they say, the situation on ground is very disturbing as the patients are being denied admission on visiting these hospitals because of non-availability of beds.

A Covid patient, Rafia (45), was taken to the Jinnah Hospital on Friday night by her family where doctors suggested them to take her to any other hospital citing non-availability of bed.  

“We took her to the Lahore General Hospital but could not find any bed there,” Rafia’s husband Ashfaq told Dawn.  

He said as they reached the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI), the staff at the reception denied them entry into the health facility, saying no beds were available. Given her serious condition, her husband finally got her admitted to an expensive private hospital on Jail Road.

Another attendant, Saqib, said he took his father to the Services Hospital on Saturday morning for virus treatment but the duty doctors told him that all the beds were occupied.

Meanwhile, Punjab witnessed another bad day on Saturday as virus claimed lives of 82 people during the last 24 hours, the highest figures recorded since the pandemic hit the province.  

Of them, 41 died in Lahore, 18 in Rawalpindi, five in Faisalabad, two each in Sialkot and Okara, three each in Sargodha and Bahawalpur, while others were reported in Chakwal, Chiniot, Lodhran, Muzaffargarh and Mianwali.

With these deaths, the virus toll has jumped to 1,347 in Punjab and512 in the provincial capital, according to the official figures released by the primary and secondary health care department on Saturday.

Similarly, 2,538 new confirmed cases of the virus were reported all over the province during the last 24 hours, taking the total number to 64,216 so far. Of these, Lahore reported 1,166, Rawalpindi 557, Multan 180, Faisalabad 137 and Gujranwala 106. Other cases were reported from Nankana Sahib, Kasur, Sheikhupura, Jehlum, Attock, Sialkot, Toba Tek Singh, Rahim Yar Khan, Sahiwal, Bhakar, Jhang, Okara etc.

https://dawn.com/news/3000695/major-hospitals-running-short-of-beds-for-critical-covid-patients