By Our Correspondent
MINGORA: The lady health workers in Swat thanked the philanthropist sisters for donating them personal protection equipment as they said they would feel safe and comfortable to trace the suspected patients of Covid-19 in their local communities.
Since the coronavirus outbreak the lady health workers (LHWs) in Swat started visiting each and every house in their vicinity to collect the data of expatriates returning from abroad as well as trace suspected Covid-19 patients.
Shaheen Ghaznavi a Pakistani American lady and her sister Neelfar Afazal based in Lahore who are helping Pakistani front line health care providers to the Covid-19 patients by donating them PPE during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic also donated 50 personal protection gowns and 100 masks to the lady healthy workers for tracing people including repatriates with symptoms of coronavirus and collecting their data.
Nahid Bahadar a lady health supervisor said that she and the lady health workers were exposed to the coronavirus during their duty of tracing suspected patients of Covid-19. “Our lady health workers are in dire need of PPEs because they are in direct contact with the suspected cases while tracing and collecting data. We have no word to express our gratitude to the two ladies who donated us PPE,” she told MP, adding that the LHWs would feel comfortable to conduct door to door survey of tracking suspected patients of Covid-19 and also conduct awareness raising sessions after having PPE.
The lady health workers said that they would continue their duty of tracing suspected patients and also raise awareness in community by visiting houses.
“We regularly conducted session to raise awareness in community members, particularly to women and children. At first we were a bit hesitant while doing our duty but now we are happy to have PPE and feel safe,” said Noreen another LHW who actively carried out her duty during the coronavirus outbreak in Swat.
The district Swat coordinator for the LHWs programme Dr Fazal Arif also thanked the two philanthropist sisters for donating personal protection equipment to the lady health workers and said it would boost their will to perform duty during coronavirus outbreak.
“I am grateful to both the sisters who donated PPE to our lady health workers who are actively working in tracing and collecting data of the suspected Covid-19 patients by door to door survey,” said Dr Fazal Arif, adding that the gowns and masks would protect the LHWs community from contracting Covid-19 while doing their duty of tracing and tracking suspected patients and conducting awareness sessions in the community.
