KARACHI: Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) General Secretary Dr Qaisar Sajjad on Monday demanded of the Sindh government to conduct an inquiry into the death of Dr Furqan, who allegedly died after denied ventilator facility at Karachi hospitals while suffering from coronavirus. Speaking to a private TV channel, Dr Qaisar Sajjad said that he talked to the Indus Hospital administration and they informed him that there were ventilators available in the hospital. “Nobody knows where to take a coronavirus patient,” he said adding that even a general physician does not know where to refer the virus patient in the city. He said that they had recommended the Sindh government to dedicate ambulances for the purpose who should have details of the hospitals where the virus patients are treated. “It should be directed to the hospitals not to refuse a doctor or his family member suffering from the coronavirus from treatment,” the PMA general secretary said while demanding a five percent quota for the frontline workers in the hospitals. There should be a place for these workers and their families to get treatment in case they suffer from the Covid-19, Dr Qaisar Sajjad said. It is pertinent to mention here a doctor infected with coronavirus lost his life due to non-availability of ventilator in different hospitals of Karachi on Sunday. The latest incident has exposed corruption, mismanagement and healthcare system of the Sindh province as Dr Furqan lost his life due to non-availability of ventilators in government hospitals, whereas, the private hospitals have also rejected to take him in as they were already packed with coronavirus patients. A retired general physician Dr Furqan of Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases became the victim of coronavirus around one week ago and went into isolation at his residence. After his health condition deteriorated at home, the family moved to different hospitals including Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) and Indus Hospital but they were sent back due to non-availability of coronavirus. Dr Furqan kept fighting for life at ambulance for two hours, however, he lost his life when the family brought him to Dow’s Ojha hospital. It emerged that most of the ventilators in the government hospitals were out of order despite the high claims of Sindh government to spend more than Rs2 billion on health facilities to fight COVID-19 pandemic.
