Operational hazard: PHC suspends surgeries at 11 hospitals

Facilities at health facilities are unfit for any medical procedures

LAHORE: The Punjab Healthcare Commission has suspended surgeries in 15 operation theatres of 11 hospitals. It also issued show-cause notices to 33 healthcare establishments for violating the PHC Act 2010 and not implementing minimum service delivery standards.

According to a press statement, these included an operation theatre each of the tehsil headquarter hospitals Arifwalla, Liaqatpur, Kot Momin, Kabirwalla, Sarai Alamgir, Bhaghtanwala and Sahiwal (Sahiwal) and two each of the Layton Rehmatullah Benevolent Trust (LRBT) Free Eye Hospital Sargodha, Bewal International Hospital Gujar Khan, THQ Hospital Khanpur and DHQ Hospital Chiniot.

The PHC has directed administrations of these respective hospitals to suspend surgeries at these operation theatres because their facilities were unfit for any medical procedures.

These theatres would become functional only after the administrations concerned submit laboratory reports and written replies to PHC, after having implemented standardised measures.

In its 37 inspections of both public and private hospitals of different districts over the last two working days, notices were served to seven hospitals for not implementing measures for the disposal of the medical waste. These include Bewal International Hospital Gujar Khan, THQ hospitals of Kot Momin, Bhagtanwalla and Sahiwal (Sargodha), Nishter Institute of Dentistry Multan and Multan Institute of Kidney Diseases.

Earlier, on January 15, the Punjab Healthcare Commission stopped 10 operation theatres at different hospitals from carrying out surgeries and issued show-cause notices to five healthcare establishments (HCEs) for not implementing the minimum service delivery standards (MSDS).

Five operations theatres were in Avicenna Hospital and four were of the Jinnah Hospital, while one operation theatre belonged to Punjab Institute of Cardiology. These operation theatres were stopped from carrying out any kind of surgery.

Last month, the PHC inspected 232 public and private sector hospitals. Out of these, 199 facilities were issued show-cause notices and 192 operation theatres were stopped from all kinds of surgeries.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2018.