Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health recognized a Pakistani doctor for his services as a team leader in the Kingdom’s fight against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. “In recognition of my services, I received a leadership award and an appreciation certificate by the Saudi health ministry,” Dr. Shahzad Ahmad Mumtaz said in an interview on phone from Riyadh on Saturday. He received the award during a ceremony to mark Saudi National Day on Sept. 23. Hailing from Layyah, a small city in southern Punjab, Mumtaz has been working in Saudi Arabia for the last 18 years.
“At the outset of the pandemic, the COVID-19 mortality rate was very high at the King Salman Hospital. I was brought here because of this reason. I had to increase the hospital’s capacity to deal with challenges posed by the pandemic,” he said.
Mumtaz said that he succeeded in bringing down these deaths by 10 percent during the last five months. This is all due to better team management and greater use of modern techniques and technology. “Mortality rate related to Covid-19 in international ICUs is around 30 percent since very critical patients are shifted to these units. The ICU at the King Salman Hospital has remained under 10 percent during the last five months,” he said.
“During all this time, I have not taken a single leave and have worked for 18-20 hours a day,” he continued.
After joining I immediately expanded the ICU from 14 to 60 beds. We used the helmet technology that is preferred in Spain and Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, which is recommended by Americans. They both produced impressive results in our hospital during the pandemic,” he said.
Naeem Chaudhry:
In June, another Pakistani doctor Naeem Chaudhry became the first in the Kingdom who laid down his life while fighting novel coronavirus disease. He worked in the General Surgery Department at Hira General Hospital in Makkah.
There is a significant drop in Covid-19 cases in Saudi Arabia and related deaths in the last few days. The total number of recoveries in Saudi Arabia increased to 315,636 after 843 more patients recently recovered from the virus. Meanwhile, 4,625 people are victims of the virus in the kingdom so far.