KARACHI:
The Sindh government on Saturday issued guidelines for all government hospitals to get their staff tested for Covid-19 and restart coronavirus contact tracing.
In a letter issued by Sindh Director General of Health Dr Irshad Ahmed Memon, a copy of which is available with The Express PK Press Club, heads of all public sector hospitals have been asked to get staff tested on priority of their respective establishments for the coronavirus. In addition, they were instructed to continue testing for the diagnosis of other suspected cases of Covid-19.
Speaking to The Express PK Press Club, Dr Memon stressed the need for all hospital employees to get tested, however, saying that Sindh had the least number of infected health service employees among the provinces.
Another Health Ministry official, also stressing the need for “immediate” screening of health professionals, said the decision had come late.
“It is feared that most health workers will not [properly] follow standard operating procedures. This ultimately leads to a multiplication of the number of infected people, even in the most remote areas,” he explained.
This was also confirmed by other officials, who pointed out that SOPs were particularly ignored in private clinics. They can then transport the virus to public hospitals, officials added.
Stating that health ministry officials were doing all they could to monitor health workers and ensure they were following SOPs, they noted that it was almost impossible to monitor private facilities.
According to the Ministry of Health, there are 1,500 rapid response teams in Sindh collecting samples for Covid-19 testing, in addition to serving in various health facilities and helping Covid-19 patients to be admitted to hospitals.
“But after several of them contracted the infection, the number of tests conducted daily was reduced,” said a senior health ministry official. He added, however, that other reasons also contributed to the reduction in the number of tests. “[Following this]routine testing was disrupted,” he explained.
Speaking on the matter, Pakistan Medical Association General Secretary Dr Qaisar Sajjad also called for immediate testing of medical professionals. “We requested it in March, but the orders have only been issued now.”
He also believes that the government is sowing confusion by reducing the number of tests.
“While the number of tests [conducted daily] is decreasing, the number of cases is increasing significantly,” he observed, explaining that the decrease in the number of reported cases had led people to ignore the SOPs.
“More than 60 percent of citizens have stopped wearing masks,” he said.
Contact tracing
With the Health Ministry also announcing the resumption of Covid-19 contact tracing, a Health Ministry official told The Express PK Press Club that the exercise was halted due to “some confusion”.
“But we’re starting again so that [suspected] cases can be traced and detected,” he confirmed.
The silence of health
Furthermore, all senior ministry officials, including spokespersons, were reportedly instructed not to speak to the media for unknown reasons. “Only a few are aware of this development,” a health official, on condition of anonymity, revealed to The Express PK Press Club. “We were told not to share any information with the media.” He added that no department official had access to the daily update of pandemic statistics given by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.
“This is the only department for which the CM publishes data,” said the official. “And while we work at the Ministry of Health, we don’t have access to it.”
Published in The Express PK Press Club, June 28th2020.
