KARACHI              -          Dr Ziauddin Hospital said on Friday that it has established a 50 bed Covid-19 Isolation Ward at its Keamari campus.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday inaugurated a 50 bed COVID-19 isolation ward and appreciated the hospital for establishing a dedicated ward for the corona patients at its Keamari campus.

“We have established a 50 bed COVID-19 Isolation Ward because there is no Covid-19 hospital in this area. We have proper ICU, HDUs and isolation ward including ventilators. We already have Covid-19 wards in both North and Clifton campuses of Dr Ziauddin Hospital,” said Dr Asim Hussain, Chairman, Dr Ziauddin Hospital while talking to the media at a press conference on the occasion of the inaugural ceremony of the ward.

Answering the question about the corona funding from the government, he said that neither they took any money from the government nor they wanted it. “In fact, the government itself offered us to take coronavirus patients but we turned down the offer. The government could better use its own government hospitals.”

Biggest reasons for the downfall in the number of corona cases are that now people have less fear of corona so they are avoiding corona tests. They start treating themselves at homes which is dangerous. Also, our district departments are not strong enough to control spread of coronavirus. The government has failed to control the current situation,” he stated.

Whilst talking to media persons about HEC and SHEC, he said: “We really need structural reforms in this country, for instance; we have six boards in Sindh but couldn’t see any supervision over these boards. The federal government hasn’t defined any role to the Sindh HEC Board and doesn’t want to give away its power. In my view, SHEC is not functioning up to the mark,” he added.

He said: “I have sent a summary to the CM for some reforms to make it better so that required VCs get appointed on an immediate basis and criteria should be followed properly.”

To a question about online education, he said that the government didn’t have the capacity to start education physically or online but Ziauddin University, have its own online system, it have an online student portal and university is taking online classes and exams. “The maximum exam that has been taken on our online system had 1,000 students online. I don’t think the government has any capacity to do this at all. How are they even managing? I’m unable to understand,” he added.

Dr Asim emphasized the need to change the outdated syllabus by saying “there are 2 important things in any education system, curriculum and syllabus.” He said: “We can follow the national curriculum but the syllabus should be changed according to every board’s requirement. Our children are studying outdated books in almost every course and we need to change our syllabus. My concern is only to have an updated syllabus.”