PESHAWAR - In-charge Intensive Care Unit of the Lady Reading Hospital Assistant Professor Dr Ayesha Mufti tendered resignation due to inadequate facilities and lack of staff in the ICU and expressed her concern over the alleged non-serious attitude of officers concerned.
In her resignation available with The Nation, she said that hospital was completely unprepared to deal with Corona epidemic, there was no planning to effectively run the hospital. She said that they were caught by surprise when we were ordered to incubate and ventilate a COVID patient inside the old casualty where an old vent was kept with no other facilities which obviously resulted in a disaster.
She added, “The next day we were ordered to vacate two ICUs immediately, we did as we were told. When we shifted our patients, our experienced and trained staff and medical officers also moved, so I was left alone. We remained as the front line fighters against COVID-19.”
She said that the number of nursing staff was highly inadequate inside the ICU, the quality of care was poor, and hygienic conditions were very bad, they tried to communicate at various levels but instead she received an explanation by the dean over some minor issues reported to him by nursing director. “Despite our maximum effort to run the general ICU with minimal and inexperienced staff, we were just criticized over our management,” she explained.
She said that the COVID epidemic may last for several months. In different countries people from various specialties have contributed, but the hospital administration intends to manage the epidemic with only six consultants, there is no backup plan in case of any of the frontline doctors gets sick.