Karachi:
Due to its advanced treatment facilities, it is known that Karachi attracts patients from every Sindh and Baluchistan. However, with only 6,500 beds, 250 fans and shortage of doctors and medical personnel, the main hospitals in the city are poorly equipped to manage even the local influx of patients.
Sadia Khatun, who came to the Jinnah hospital for her husband’s biliary gallbladder surgery, the staff said there was no bed available. “I fought tirelessly to ensure a bed for my husband, but I was not successful. For two weeks, I went to the Jinnah hospital for my husband’s admission, but I could not find a bed. Poor patients have to wait incessantly to get a loan in government hospitals, because they have to face severe difficulties in the treatment of Sadia, who finally had to take a loan A private hospital in a private hospital.
According to former director Health Karachi Dr. Ikram Sultan, the lack of availability of treatment facilities in the hospitals of the Interior Sindh district resulted in a large influx of patients in government hospitals. “The Jinnah hospital receives a large number of patients not only from Karachi but also from other cities. In addition, the number of beds has not increased in decades, while there is a serious shortage of personnel in these hospitals. The government must guarantee the appointment of specialists of various diseases in the hospitals of the district and provide secondary care services in these hospitals. Only then the pressure of patients in Jinnah and civil hospitals.
Express PAkGazette sources have revealed that 60 percent of the beds in Karachi district hospitals are busy. Although these hospitals provide primary health care centers, they face a serious shortage of paramedic and nursing staff, with specialists such as anesthesiologists, nephrologists and pulmonologists that are not available. This significantly increases the influx of patients in the main tertiary care centers in provincial capital.
For example, the Civil Hospital receives 2,000 patients daily in the accident department, while 8,000 patients visit the OPD for their exam. The hospital admits 200 patients every day. In response to a question, Dr. Khalid Bukhari, head of the hospital, reported an unprecedented increase in the number of patients who come from Sindh and Baluchistan. “Because of this, patients in Karachi sometimes have to wait one or two months before receiving treatment,” said Dr. Bukhari.
Similarly, the spokesman of the Jinnah hospital, Jahangir Durrani, informed that most of the hospital’s ICU units were inactive due to 50 percent of the staff that was not available. “The ICU technicians are necessary to execute the team. Due to the sharp shortage of personnel in the ICU units, patients enter only five out of 15 beds in the UCI of Cofre. In the same way, there are 21 beds in the surgical ICU, but patients enter only eight,” Durrani said.
In a similar note, the executive director of the emergency trauma center and emergency accidents Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, Dr. Sabir Memon, revealed that there were a total of 500 beds in the trauma center, of which 60 were not functional. Similarly, the Liaquatabad Hospital of the Government of Sindh has only 200 beds, four theaters of operations and 16 fans, with 75 percent of the beds occupied by patients. There is not a single CT explore machine available in the installation. Similar shortage of bed and doctor personnel at the General Hospital of Lyari, the Qatar Hospital of the Government of Sindh, the Saudabad Hospital of the Government of Sindh, the Korangi hospital of the Government of Sindh and the new Karachi hospital of the Sindh government, have been reported.
To make things worse, the main government hospitals of Karachi, including the Civil Hospital, the Institute of Urology and Transplantation Sindh (Siut), the Trauma Center, the Services Hospital and the Police Surgeon’s Office are located in an area densely populated by the Ma Jinnah road, where the ambulance movement is often obstructed by heavy traffic.
