Sindh’s Covid-19 death toll crosses 3,000

Doctors at LUH Hyderabad warn of collapse with record seven deaths in a single day at virus ward

HYDERABAD:

The novel coronavirus claimed 20 more lives overnight in the province, tipping Sindh's pandemic death toll over the 3,000 mark. Meanwhile, Hyderabad marked its own grim milestone of a record seven deaths at Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) within a day, with doctors warning of a critical situation.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Saturday that the death toll had risen to 3,011.

Moreover, as many as 1,569 people were diagnosed with the virus, with a positivity ratio of 11.3 per cent for the 13,864 samples tested on the day, , he added. With the newly reported cases in Sindh, the virus tally has reached 182,473.

Warning signs

As Hyderabad's LUH lost a record seven Covid-19 patients in the space of a mere 12 hours on Saturday, the need for attentive medical care of patients in critical condition was reinforced.

The number of deaths in Sindh's second-largest city - which also has one of the highest Covid-19 positivity rates in the country - began to spiral upwards with the onset of winter, with 26 patients succumbing to the virus in the second half of November, while a total of 40 patients died during the month.

There have been 11 deaths in the city in the first five days of December so far. However, health authorities in the district appear to be slow to respond to the warning signs.

"We told the district administration two days ago that there will be a sudden collapse of coronavirus patients admitted in LUH's Covid-19 ward," said a doctor deputed at the ward, requesting anonymity. "And we told them again yesterday that the situation has worsened beyond our expectations."

Although he denied that negligence of the doctors working in the ward was in any way responsible for these deaths, he stressed the need to establish closed Covid-19 wards in other hospitals so as to lower the burden on LUH. "Patients requiring only oxygen support should be shifted from our ward so that we can accommodate critical cases," he added.

Hyderabad deputy commissioner Fuad Ghaffar Soomro, meanwhile, told The Express Tribune that stable patients who only required oxygen support, rather than the intensive care unit (ICU), would be shifted to Government Hospital Kohsar, Latifabad.

On Friday, the LUH reopened the Covid-19 ward at its Jamshoro hospital, with 36 beds divided between a high dependency unit (HDU) and an ICU. Six patients admitted to LUH Hyderabad and one from Combined Military Hospital, Hyderabad, were shifted to the ward in Jamshoro.

Meanwhile, among the seven patients who died at LUH Hyderabad's COVID-19 ward, five belonged to Hyderabad and one each to Jamshoro and Umerkot districts. The bodies were handed over to the families for burial as per the pandemic standard operating procedures.

The deaths of the five Hyderabad-based patients have increased the city's death toll to 139 since April 3, with November emerging as the deadliest month so far.

According to the data prepared by the district health office, four coronavirus patients died in Hyderabad in April, 21 in May, 23 in June, 21 in July, 10 in August, four in September, five in October, 40 in November and 11 in the first five days of December.

"The sudden surge in deaths has made the need for fully equipped Covid-19 wards, with dedicated doctors and staff, even more important than in the first wave of the coronavirus," said a doctor who had previously worked at the LUH ward.

Hyderabad ranked fourth in the list of districts with the highest virus positivity rate on the day, with 12.1 per cent of samples testing positive. Earlier this week, the provincial health department had shown a five-day positivity ratio of 18.4 per cent in the district.

The state of the province

The CM said that 1,289 new infections were reported in Karachi alone. Meanwhile, Hyderabad saw 55 new Covid-19 cases, Tando Mohammad Khan 22, Sanghar 17, Jamshoro 13, Shaheed Benazirabad and Thatta 12 each, Ghotki and Mirpurkhas 11 each, Sukkur and Jacobabad nine each, Matiari eight, Sujawal and Tando Allahyar seven each, Larkana six, Shikarpur and Umerkot four each and Qambar-Shahdadkot three.

The CM further revealed that 20,895 patients were currently infected with the virus, of whom 20,042 were in home isolation, 840 were being treated at different hospitals and 13 were quarantined at isolation centres. He added that 744 patients were said to be in critical condition and 82 of them were on ventilators.

On the other hand, 1,561 patients recovered from the contagious disease overnight, lifting the number of recoveries in Sindh to 158,567.

*With additional input from our correspondent in Karachi

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2020.