Punjab orders to make field hospitals functional amid COVID cases spike

LAHORE: The Punjab government has issued orders to make all field hospitals on divisional level functional including Lahore’s Expo Field Hospital amid raging second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, ARY News reported on Sunday.

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Sunday said that the countrywide test positivity ratio of Covid-19 cases was recorded 7.94 per cent in the past 24 hours.

The positivity rate in Lahore has increased from seven to 10 percent within one week.

Punjab government has also directed divisional administrations of Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan to make the field hospitals functional in their limit.

The government has also decided to re-allocate ventilators and oxygen beds for novel coronavirus patients.

The Chief Secretary has been issued instructions for an effective implementation of the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs) from the next week.

Chief Minister of Punjab has also ordered the finance department to allocate funds for the field hospitals across the province.

The Punjab government had earlier issued alert to major hospitals of Lahore in view of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. According to the notification, Expo Centre’s Hall Number 2 will be made functional for coronavirus patients in Lahore.

The health authorities have prepared a 300-bed high-dependency unit (HDU) at the field hospital where patients with breathing problems will be admitted.

The administrations of Mayo Hospital, Services Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, General Hospital have also been directed to take immediate steps to operationalise the HDUs and intensive care units (ICUs) at the same level as it was functioning in June.