PHOTO: EXPRESS
According to the patients, many women who visit the hospital from far-flung areas have to wait for hours in long queues outside the gyne department for their medical cards. The ward has limited space for these women to wait in.
Since limited medical cards are issued and the cards are issued within a limited window, a large number of patients have to return home empty-handed every day despite having waited for hours in long queues.
This could prove dangerous for pregnant women, especially those who are visiting the hospital from remote areas, patients complained.
They further complained about ineffective treatment methodology, rude attitude of lady doctors and a shortage of senior doctors at gyne wards. Even if they somehow manage to get through to the doctor, there are limited beds available in the wards, where a limited number of staff is available while there is an acute shortage of medicines.
They urged the hospital’s administration and the concerned government department to take notice of the frequent absence of senior doctors and non-observance of duty-roster by medical and non-medical staff at gyne wards.
"There should be a monitoring mechanism to check them whether the duty staff observed their duties or not at the gyne wards," said Altaf Shah, the husband of the patient in the ward.
He suggested that a system of reward and punishment should be started by the hospital management under which responsible staff should be encouraged while those who do not take their duties seriously should be taken to task.
Another attendant, Naem Malik, alleged that senior doctors were usually not found at their duty stations while only postgraduate (PG) doctors, who are still studying at the medical college, have been left to run affairs in one of the most sensitive departments of the hospital.
Malik further stated that due to the limited knowledge and experience, the trainee doctors could not satisfy patients, especially those who have serious medical complications.
They could not even properly treat patients with minor medical issues in the outpatient departments (OPDs) and mostly referred the serious ones to other hospitals, Malik added.
Asif Mumtaz, the attendant of a woman said, "The rush in the Gyne OPDs is maddening here. The hospital should increase the OPD rooms for dealing with a maximum number of patients daily besides increasing the number of beds."
He urged that senior gynaecologists should be posted in labour rooms while the number of operation theaters should be increased to ensure routine gynaecological surgeries are handled swiftly and effectively to keep more beds free for deliveries.
He said that the city dispensaries should be strengthened and gynaecologists should be posted at each of them while the timings of these dispensaries should be increased to facilitate patients.
"Some doctors are good, but the hospital's gyne ward should have more beds as it is not easy to lay on a stretcher, especially after a caesarean operation,” said a patient, adding, “The entire experience was horrifying. I cannot wait to get back home.”
She said that due to the non-professional attitude of the staff in the labour rooms and gyne wards, patients faced several hardships, particularly those in critical condition.
Sometimes patients at the gyne department, she said, requires an immediate response from expert doctors but only PGs were found there and the specialist doctors could not reach the ward on time.
"It was surprising when I came to know that the senior doctors were making mere rounds, while the junior graduates were performing complicated operations without any supervision," another patient said.
A junior doctor, while speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that senior doctors, including those on night duties, are often absent from the wards. Moreover, he said that doctors preferred to conduct C-sections rather than normal deliveries so as to extort more money from poor patients.
When contacted, an official of Pims said that unlike medical practices abroad, where a doctor examines five to seven patients in a day, at Pims the ratio is such that a doctor has to examine several patients daily.
He said that a sufficient number of doctors perform their duties in the hospital's Gynaecology department including wards, at day and at night, to properly serve patients while a team of doctors remains in the gyne wards of the hospital around the clock.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2018.
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