Doctors Got Beaten, Kept In Detention By Police For Protesting About The Lack Of CO.VID-19 Safety Equipment

Doctors in Pakistan have warned of poor conditions on the country’s frontline to fight CO.VID-19, saying that the epidemic is untreatable in one region while accusing the police of brutally suppressing protests over their working conditions.

On Monday, a doctor participating in a sit-in to protest the lack of protective equipment said that he was beaten and humiliated by the police.

Amanullah, the doctor, spoke in the police station in Quetta where he was held, stating his shock:

“In the beginning, I thought, ‘How could police use violence against the frontline fighters of COVID-19 when some days ago the same officers had saluted us for leading during the pandemic?’”

He told that the police used AK-47 rifles and dragged him and 60 other doctors through the street, then threw them into trucks. The police kept them in detention overnight then released them on Tuesday midnight.

In the hospital whose emergency wards he works in, there have already been 16 doctors infected with SARS-CoV-2, including the cardio department. He stated:

“We can’t say that how many patients they spread the disease to.”

Since then, many patients treated by these doctors for non-coronavirus issues have been confirmed infected with the virus. Nevertheless, doctors in this hospital haven’t been given PPE while in facilities not meant for treating CO.VID-19, there aren’t any isolation wards for infected doctors.

In the epicenter of Pakistan, Balochistan, there are only 19 ventilators. There have been over 4,400 confirmed cases across the country, but with low testing rates, doctors believe the real number of cases must be far larger.

“There is a lot of psychological distress and trauma, as we have no idea how many patients we have infected or will be infecting. That’s why we decided to march and demand PPE; not for ourselves, but to save the lives of many.”

Another expressed his upset that doctors here are treating patients with no PPE or safety equipment to protect themselves. They cannot treat CO.VID-19 patients due to the lack of proper facilities and it’s heartbreaking that while infected patients are begging for help, they have to turn them down as they can’t even touch them, let alone treat them.

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