The News reported that for the last couple of weeks, the administration of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre’s (JPMC) has been observing an increase in the number of patients either being brought in dead or dying within hours of their arrival. The hospital sent the X-ray of one such critically ill 35-year-old woman to a well-known chest specialist – who is treating COVID-19 patients at a tertiary-care hospital – and he confirmed that the patient was most probably suffering from ‘COVID pneumonia’.
The hospital confirmed that besides the woman with the fluid-filled lungs, more than 300 such patients were brought to the facility in the past 15 days, which either died on arrival or within hours of their arrival. “We started observing this trend by the end of last month, when we saw that the number of patients requiring emergency treatment had declined from 1,800-2,000 to 600-700 a day. Initially, we didn’t pay any heed, but now we’re seeing a pattern. And this is also being reported by other hospitals,” said the critical care specialist at the JPMC.
The emergency medicine specialist said, “People between 45 and 60 years of age usually take a few days’ time, while some of them even respond to emergency treatment, but here we are witnessing a strange phenomenon.” The emergency officials revealed that since March 31, 109 patients have been brought in dead and 90 who were alive when brought to the JPMC emergency but died mysteriously. Moreover, the officials at other public and private hospitals admitted that the number of cases with ‘pneumonia-like symptoms’ was on the rise, which was believed to be caused by the coronavirus.
The officials of Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) – the city’s largest public hospital – also confirmed that the number of critically sick patients and DOAs had increased.