Doctor dies of coronavirus due to non-availability of ventilator in Karachi hospitals

KARACHI: A doctor infected with coronavirus lost his life due to non-availability of ventilator in different hospitals of Karachi, ARY News reported 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.

Sources told ARY News that Sindh hospitals have around 350 ventilators out of which more than 70 were found out of order.

President of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Karachi, Khurram Sher Zaman, expressed sorrow over the death of Dr Furqan and paid rich tribute to his services for humanity.

He expressed outrage that health facilities were not available even for one doctor in Karachi. He added that the situation would be very different if the government made its efforts to implement lockdown and expenditure of medical equipment instead of spreading fear among citizens.

Zaman demanded the resignation of the provincial health minister over poor arrangements for preventing precious lives of citizens amid coronavirus pandemic.