ISLAMABAD: Eight wards at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad are crowded with coronavirus patients, the hospital’s spokesperson said.
Each ward has between 28 and 30 beds and all are occupied with patients throughout the week. According to the management, it’s nearly impossible to admit new patients coming to the hospital.“Only two nurses are catering to all these patients,” ICU registrar Dr Fazal Rabi said, adding that cheap medicine and treatment is available at the hospital.
On the other hand, the recently inaugurated Isolation Hospital and Infectious Treatment Centre in the city has not begun operations yet despite being given Rs1.2 billion. Earlier in December, all wards at PIMS were closed except for the isolation and emergency wards. They were closed because of a protest by hospital employees against the Medical Teaching Institution Ordinance.
The employees say the protest would continue till the government withdraws the ordinance.According to the ordinance, teaching hospitals will be allowed to end or create any post in the health facility on their own but the cost must not exceed the annual budget provided by the government.
