Hospital building flooded with wastewater

LAHORE: The basement of the eight-storey Institute of Ophthalmology at Mayo Hospital is flooded with wastewater that doctors say, combined with the generally poor hygiene at the hospital, is causing the spread of infections.

On Monday this correspondent visited the eye tower – which was renovated at a cost of Rs80 million in 2008  and found its basement to be full of filthy water. Mosquito larvae abounded on the surface of the stagnant water, serving as a potential source of malaria. All the washrooms in the tower were also flooded with dirty water.

A foul odour permeates the entire building. The patients lying in their beds in the various wards had covered their faces with cloth so they wouldn’t have to smell the stench coming from below.

Dr Zahid Pervaiz, the medical superintendent of Mayo Hospital, admitted that the eye tower is in very poor condition. He said he was trying to get a sewage system built so the water in the basement could be pumped out, but added that he was unable to do so. He did not explain why.

Dr Salman Kazmi of the Young Doctors’ Association said that the Punjab government spent Rs80 million on the renovation of the building in 2008. “Clearly, the funds were not utilised properly,” he said.

“For three years, the patients admitted to the tower have been put at risk of various diseases because of the dirty environment and the non-disposal of wastewater. The whole tower is probably on the verge of collapse,” he said.

The 2,400-bed Mayo Hospital is the largest in the city and gets 2,500 new patients every day. A senior doctor said the administration deserved blame for its poor state. “This hospital needs an effective administration, not one that is lazy,” he said. Mayo Hospital paid a fine of Rs200,000 in 2009 because its unhygienic environment violated the Hospital Waste Management Rules (HWMR) of 2005.

The fine was handed out by an environmental tribunal, according to the environment department of the city government.

The hospital seems currently to again be violating the rules. A city government official said that Section 31 of the Pakistan Environment Protection Act of 1997 requires that Mayo Hospital dispose of their waste according to HWMR 2005.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2011.