Daily Times

The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination has started upgrading Isolation Hospital and Infectious Treatment Centre (IHITC) Islamabad with addition of 150 beds, enhancing other facilities.

According to ministry spokesman, this 250 bed purpose-built facility for infectious diseases has been serving Covid-19 patients since its inauguration by the Prime Minister Imran Khan in July, 2020.

He added the Ministry of National Health Services took over the facility from January 1st, 2021. Initially only 35 beds were functional with a limited number of medical, paramedical and support staff.

In view of the third wave of Covid-19, with unparalleled support from the ministry, IHITC management was able to ramp up the bed capacity to 105 beds.

He said that IHITC now has 52 doctors and a paramedical staff of 86 while 84 patients are currently being treated at IHITC. The facility now has a total of 55 ventilators, 100 BiPAPs, 250 syringe pumps, 19 infusion pumps, 92 cardiac monitors, 25 portable oxygen cylinders, one ultrasound machine and eight mobile X-Rays units.

He said that initially a 6,000L tank of liquid oxygen was being used for centralised oxygen supply. A master tank of 15,000L is currently being installed in addition to this to ramp up the liquid oxygen storage capacity.

Pathology lab at IHITC was initially totally outsourced however within a short period of time, with support from the ministry, the management has been able to start indigenous testing becoming self reliant and economical.

The spokesman said that independent PCR testing will commence soon too while one fully equipped ambulance is stationed at IHITC for transportation of critical patients to-and-from the facility.

In addition, a standard ambulance is also stationed to facilitate patients while a mass vaccination centre was established at IHITC on March 16, 2021.

He said that 2,126 people have since been inoculated with capacity to vaccinate 4,000 people daily.

He added there are a total eight registration counters, 40 vaccination counters, 54 observation beds, four emergency rooms, 8,000 vials storage capacity and three ILRs with zero serious adverse effects reported till date.