Regarding, the government’s response to coronavirus, on March 13, the first meeting of the National Security Council (NHC) took place. The Prime Minister of Pakistan chaired the NHC meeting which includes top military and civil leadership. The purpose of the meeting was to look at the alarming threat to the health system. So he asked the relevant persons to lay out a plan and likewise inform him on this matter. On the other hand, the first case of coronavirus registered on February 26th. The person visited Iran recently. His contacts traced and isolated quickly. In short, until March 12, the total number of cases was 21 in Pakistan. For live stats, visit here. But there is a need for a strict action plan. Imran Khan on his speech on March 17, asked,” While there is a need for caution but no need to panic (Ghabrana Nahi hai).” He said that we can not completely lock down the country. Because of doing this, daily wagers can die out of hunger instead of coronavirus. For instance, India completely locked down the country without taking the view of the people who are below the poverty line. But Pakistan has the largest number of cases in South Asia, far more than its neighbor, India. Before any registered case, Pakistan decided not to strand the 800 students in Wuhan, Chian returned to the country. 18th Amendment According to the 18th Amendment to the constitution of Pakistan, it gives semi-autonomous status to provinces to adopt a different course of action from the central government. As a result, we saw varying lockdowns intensity in Sindh, Pakistan’s largest province hit by Taftan visitors. The government kept the visitors in camps for 14 days and let them go after screening. After that, they were allowed to return back to their homes and villages. But a large number of people got positive in their reports when tested by local health care workers. However, health experts alleged that people were badly mishandled by authorities. This provides the place to call military aid “act in aid of civil powers” but not until formally invited. PM and President Steps The Prime Minister of Pakistan has approved an economic fund of 1 Trillion rupees for people to help them in crisis. Meanwhile, the President of Pakistan visited China to learn from them as they have declined the number of cases now. Beijing pledged to help Pakistan as they now dealt with reducing the number of cases. The team from China has also come to help out. Ministry of Health Services As a result of this pandemic, the Ministry of Health Service has laid out a plan which shows the intention go government to respond to this outbreak. Vision A national effort to respond to COIVD-19 emergency in Pakistan Minimal National Morbidity and Mortality Long term Developing a structure ensuring timely response and plan for all pandemics. Problems to Government Above all, the government is doing all its efforts to stop this pandemic. But people are not serious about taking precautions. They allow their kids to play on grounds. Upon closing the grounds, they go to the open area for playing. Their parents are unwilling to quarantine them to crowded homes. Pakistan is the world’s fifth populous country. Similarly, the clerical community is refusing to help the government. They have not stopped large gatherings and offering prayers. About 150,000 clerics from around the world helped spread the virus in a religious gathering. Pakistan’s cases have risen from 250, a few weeks before to 1098 after that. The officials canceled it but participants already scale, eating, sleeping and living in close quarters. Steps announced by Government Ten steps announced by the government to prevent this pandemic in Pakistan which are: National Coordination Committee for coronavirus (COVID-19) will make decisions on a daily basis. All educational institutions, both public and private, are closed till 31st May. Pakistan will completely seal its border with Afghanistan and Iran for travelers and trades. Katarpur will be closed for Pakistani but Indians pilgrims will keep visiting. Pakistan will departure international flights from Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad for effective screens travelers. The government put a ban on all public gatherings and conferences. To prevent coronavirus, no visiting allowed in prisoners. The government will reach to religious leaders to work out the modalities for effective management of religious services. The government will devise a plan to avoid food supply shortcomings. National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will cooperate with the district and provincial for necessary implementations. A corona relief tiger force will be working with government and security agencies. The force will provide food to people if we forced to lockdown. In short, the government has taken many steps on its behalf to avoid the separation of the pandemic. It will be achieved by the mutual corporation of people and the government. Because if we forced to lockdown, many peoples will die out to hunger. It is only possible by the individual and collective efforts. We should not be a hurdle in the way of prevention. Instead, we should play our role in this. For instance, Instacre is providing free consultation for coronavirus.
How Fatal Are Medication Errors Worldwide, And In Pakistan? How To Avoid These Nearly everyone, especially in Pakistan has gone through, bad experiences in the health sector. Things like the wrong diagnosis, disasters due to doctors’ negligence – even if it is bad handwriting, ill prescription, false mention of dose timings so on and so forth. These kinds of instances are prevalent among government hospitals. Though these ill practices are present worldwide, in Pakistan, these are up to an alarming frequency. Just to quote one instance, Umer Farooq Bajwa died at Sheikh Zaid Hospital due to a medication error during his liver transplant. Another unfortunate incident happened last week. Umer Farooq Bajwa went to hospital for a liver transplant for his mother and died due to a medication error that occurred due to human error. Wish we could save an innocent soul. #Instacare #healthcareforall #HealthCareTech pic.twitter.com/0qU2qg90zl — InstaCare (@InstaCarePk) February 7, 2020 There are innumerable cases of such treatments. The irony is most of these can be avoided without any excessive measure. What is a Medical Error? Simply put, a medication error is a difference between what the doctor intended and what he carried forward. In this definition, the quacks haven’t been considered because the whole treatment of quacks is a medication error since they don’t know what they are doing most of the time. A scholarly definition is given by Grober and Bohnen which says that a medical error is “the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (an error of execution) or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (an error of planning) (Reason, 1990). An unintended act (either of omission or commission) or one that does not achieve its intended outcome (Leape, 1994). Deviations from the process of care, which may or may not cause harm to the patient (Reason, 2001).” Types of Medical Errors: There are several types of medication errors. One problem in listing down all of these is that in different situations, certain kinds of error might or might not occur. For example, while using a digital platform for medicine management (like EMR or EHR), there are far fewer chances of the wrong prescriptions in terms of handwriting (as doctors are notorious for their handwriting). But just to name a few, the following is the list based on a study done by US National Library of Medicine and National Institute of Health: Diagnostic: Error or delay in diagnosis Failure to employ indicated tests Use of outmoded tests or therapy Failure to act on results of monitoring or testing Treatment: Error in performance of an operation, procedure, or test Error in administering treatment Error in the dose or method of using a drug Avoidable delay in treatment or in responding to an abnormal test Inappropriate care Preventive: Failure to provide prophylactic treatment Inadequate monitoring or follow-up of treatment Other: Failure of communication Equipment failure Other system failures Medical Errors around the world: As said before, medication errors are prevalent all around the world. In the US, 1.3 million people are injured annually due to medication errors. Around 9,000 to 24,000 people die annually in Canada. due to negligence of hospital administration. According to a study by the European Commission, the prevalence of medication errors in Latvia is 32%, in Denmark, it is 29%, and in Poland, it is 28%. Journal of Anesthesiology reports that in India, medication errors occur around 5.2 million times annually. And only in Delhi, 82 out of every thousand prescriptions contain an error. Medical Errors in Pakistan According to a study done by the Journal of Pakistan Medical Association, quotes a prescription error of 39.28%. It is found that 5.5% of pharmacists, 2.6% nurses, and 1.1% of physicians are negligent towards their practices. Only a handful of medical errors get attention in our media. And in fact, thousands of cases go without the attention of even the patient himself. No one will question that the deterioration of their health even after a check-up by a doctor, can be the result of a medication error. People make statements like this doctor doesn’t have shifa and that’s all. Only a handful of people understand that the negligence of the system could result in this unfortunate event, not the doctor himself. Abdul Latif Shaikh, president of the Pakistan Society of Health-System Pharmacists (PSHP), quoted that 5,00,000 people die annually due to some kind of medication error in Pakistan. Can we avoid Medical Errors? These errors cannot be removed over nightly but can be reduced significantly in a day just by employing a reliable and efficient Electronic Management Record system (EMR). By using an EMR software, issues like prescription errors, dosage errors, and wrong diagnosis will be reduced considerably. Plus, the efficiency that comes is additional. A lot of errors occur because of the workload on doctors. When an EMR software will share their managerial workload, they will be easily able to put more effort into diagnosis and spend more time with the patient. And hopefully, save a few beautiful lives.
