Senior and expert doctors in the port city on Wednesday warned of the country’s already fragile healthcare system collapsing in the government allows relaxations in the COVID-19 lockdown.
Addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club, Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Secretary General Dr Qaiser Sajjad regretted that the lockdown in Sindh, which the provincial government had effectively enforced earlier, had “now become a joke just like in the rest of the country”.
“I have to say, with all due respect, that our government has made a very wrong decision and our ulema have demonstrated extreme insensitivity [akin to] playing with human lives. This fight is between the coronavirus and doctors, so please listen to us […] You (government and scholars) have held a meeting without including any technical person,” he lamented.
“You have drafted 20 SOPs (standard operating procedures). Please tell me, will these SOPs be followed in Pakistan’s mosques? The prime minister has said that the mosques where SOPs are not followed will be closed. Mr prime minister, by then, it will be too late,” he stated.
Emphasising the responsibility of religious scholars, Dr Atif Hafeez Siddiqui urged ulemas to “review their decision” to keep mosques open.
“We want to say that congregations like these would lead to exponential growth […] and if we don’t stop that and this [virus] spreads, then everyone will forget markets and supermarkets. Fingers will only be pointed at mosques.”
He reminded religious leaders that they were not the only ones suffering, adding that the whole world was currently in the same boat.
“We doctors are also bearing the economic impact, we earn through clinics but we have closed them. No one is spared from the economic brunt, the entire world is affected,” Dr Siddiqui said.
Media persons in the press conference were apprised that nearly all facilities in Karachi are full.
The doctors said that they were already burdened with stress and working full time without PPEs and the government’s decision to introduce relaxations in the lockdown had added to their frustrations.
“Keep in mind that this disease has not yet peaked, the numbers are still on the left side of the graph. We are the “experts” in the current scenario. Listen to us before it is too late,” Indus Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Abdul Bari
“The bottom line is that this problem is more severe than [people] realise and all experts believe that this [disease] will spread in the next two to four weeks and might peak,” he concluded.
