Dawood Foundation has announced a collaborative project with Aga Khan University to build the capacity of frontline healthcare professionals to manage COVID-19 patients across Pakistan.
As cases continue to rise across the country, healthcare institutions across Pakistan are setting up dedicated services to treat coronavirus patients, from wards to intensive care units. To staff these services, healthcare workers from other specialist areas are being mobilised and trained to work with COVID-19 patients.
Dawood Foundation will be contributing Rs 79.5 million for this two-phased project, in coordination with the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination. In the first phase, 5,000 physicians, nurses and paramedical staff will receive online training in the management of moderate-to-critical COVID-19 patients across the country.
In phase two of the project, AKU will provide on-site training to 500 healthcare professionals to build capacity in their respective institutions, in relevant areas of COVID-19 treatment and beyond.
The partnership will also see AKU operate a teleconsultation service for healthcare professionals aiming to enhance the treatment of over 16,000 hospitalised patients.
“We are pleased to partner with Aga Khan University for this innovative and sustainable programme that will improve lives across Pakistan,” said Dawood Foundation CEO, Sabrina Dawood. “By creating a COVID-19 Health Provider Network and enabling tele-consultation services in the underserved areas of the country, this project can potentially reform critical care delivery at the national level.”
Dawood Foundation is involved in this project as part of the PKR 1 billion Hussain Dawood Pledge that extends COVID-19 relief efforts in four focus areas: preventing the disease, protecting and enabling healthcare practitioners and other key workers, enabling patient care and facilities, and bolstering livelihoods and sustenance of the most deserving in society.
“We consider it our duty to stand up and be counted in the nation’s hour of need,” said AKU’s Medical College Dean, Dr Adil Haider. “This partnership will add momentum to the national response by providing healthcare workers with the advanced knowledge and skills needed to treat hospitalised, ill COVID-19 patients.”
Aga Khan University is already providing free tele-consultations to healthcare workers treating critically ill COVID patients, with the support of the Ministry of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With this agreement, AKU will now provide free tele-consults to the full range of hospitalized patients: from moderate and severe, to the critically ill. The University has also run a range of courses for frontline healthcare workers, in partnership with the Sindh government, on key aspects of critical care medicine.