TIMERGARA - The residents of Lower Dir have demanded of Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan and Health Minister to immediately provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for doctors and paramedical staff, who are dealing with the suspected patients of COVID-19 in various hospitals and quarantine centers in the district at the risk of their own lives.
Talking to The Nation, Coordinator Dir Qaami Pasoon (DQP), a rights body in Lower Dir Jehan Alam, social activists Akbar Khan Lala, Umar Zada, Ibrash Pasha, Khan Badshah and others said it was the prime responsibility of elected members from Lower Dir district to ensure availability of ventilators and COVID-19 testing kits in health facilities besides provision of PPEs for doctors and paramedical staff who were at the front line against COVID-19 outbreak.
It is worth to mention here that the coordination council of doctors and paramedical staff at District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital Timergara had threatened the other day to boycott their duties in case the government failed to provide PPEs to the staff.
“Elected representatives from Lower Dir should take people of Dir in confidence regarding their performance in this hour of trial, where the elected representatives from Dir had gone missing”, they questioned.
Formation of the Corona Coordination Council (CCC) having parliamentarians, bureaucrats and members from civil society as its members was the need of the hour, they suggested.
When this scribe contacted MPA Dr Sumaira Shams, Chairperson Standing Committee on Health Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, apprising her about the pathetic condition of Lower Dir hospitals, she said that she was in continuous coordination with Commissioner Malakand and Deputy Commissioner Dir Lower and they were updating her regarding the situation.
“I am going to take up the issue of missing facilities at the DHQ Timergara and other health units at Dir Upper and Dir Lower with the Health minister and soon will do whatever I can for the people of Dir”, she added
