PESHAWAR, Jul 09 (APP):Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mahmood Khan formally inaugurated an specialized COVID-19 Hospital here on Thursday in an effort to enhance specialized treatment facilities for corona patients in the province.
The hospital has been set up on based of global SOPs and guidelines, and was fully equipped with ventilators, monitors, oxygen, ABG machines, infusion pumps and other necessary equipments to manage hypoxemic respiratory failure, acute respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock and other complications resulting from COVID-19.
Initially the hospital consisted of 58 beds which will enhance to 110 within a month period. It consisted of 37 Isolation beds, 16 High Dependency beds and five Intestine Care beds.
Addressing as chief guest the inaugural ceremony, the Chief Minister termed the establishment of the hospital as milestone achievement of the provincial government to enhance the treatment facilities for Corona patients and said that it would reduce burden of COVID-19 patients on the tertiary care hospitals of the provincial metropolis.
Touching upon the efforts of his government to strengthen the health infrastructure to effectively deal with corona pandemic, Mahmood Khan remarked that initially the capacity of health system in the province to deal with Corona patients was very weak but the provincial government had been working day and night and now the overall capacity of public sector hospitals has been enhanced considerably adding that efforts were still underway under well devised plan to further strengthen the capacities of these hospitals.
He said that the provincial government was trying to turn the Corona challenge into an opportunity to strengthen the health infrastructure of the province and result oriented steps were being taken to this effect.
“Initially the total Corona testing capacity in the province was just forty test per day which has now been increased to 4000 test per day” , Mahmood Khan stated adding that in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Authority, the provincial government was making efforts to operationalized another 210 bedded COVID hospital in Peshawar.
In his address the Chief minister lauded the role of National Coordination Committee and National Command and Operation Centre in the prevailing Corona situation and said that under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, these fora have played very effective role to take all the federating units on board in order to devise an effective strategy and get it implemented to contain the mass scale outbreak of the pandemic.
“In the prevailing Corona situation the government was making efforts on two different fronts simultaneously”, Mahmood Khan remarked adding that on the one hand the government has to take steps to contain the outbreak of the pandemic and on the other hand it has to take measures to protect the people specially the vulnerable segments of society from hunger, and the government is trying to maintain a balance between both the situation.
He further said that whatever steps the government was taking all of them were only meant for the larger benefit of the general masses, and appealed to the public to strictly follow the precautionary measures in order to make themselves and others safe from the pandemic.
Mahmood khan expressed his gratitude to International Rescue Committee (IRC), Medical Emergency Resilience Foundation (MERF) and other partner organizations for their assistance in establishing the COVID-hospital.
