HYDERABAD - A record number of COVID-19 infected patients have died in a single day in Hyderabad’s Liaquat University Hospital’s COVID-19 ward on Saturday.
A LUH official confirmed to media the death of 7 patients aged between 40 to 85 years. He informed that 5 of the deceased belonged to Hyderabad and one each to Jamshoro and Umerkot districts.
The deceased include 40 years old Lubna Ghulam Dastgir, 55 years old Sharaf Naz, 74 years old Tara Chand, 65 years old Shamim Muhammad Iqbal, 49 years old Muhammad Israr, 62 years old Pathani Suleman and 85 years old Shoukat Ara.
Except Lubna and Tara, who belonged to Jamshoro and Umerkot, respectively, all the other deceased lived in Hyderabad. The dead bodies were handed over to the families for burial in accordance with the standard operating procedures (SOPs).
The 5 new deaths in Hyderabad have increased the city’s death toll to 139 since April 3 with November being the deadliest month with 40 deaths. According to the statistics of the district health office, 4 patients died due to COVID-19 in the month of April, 21 in May, 23 in June, 21 in July, 10 in August, 4 in September, 5 in October, 40 in November and 11 in the first 5 days of December.
At present, only one hospital in Hyderabad, the LUH, is admitting coronavirus positive patients for the treatment.
A doctor working in the COVID-19 ward told media that the ward has become overcrowded with the staff finding it difficult to manage the critical patients. “The patients who aren’t critical and only require the oxygen support should be shifted to some other hospital so that we can deal with only the critical patients,” said the doctor, who requested anonymity.
The Deputy Commissioner (DC) Hyderabad told media that they had planned to shift the patients requiring oxygen support only to Government Hospital Kohsar, Latifabad, whose COVID-19 ward remained non-functional for a few months because of a drop in the cases.