Closure of diabetic foot ward leaves patients suffering in Larkana

The facility was closed down five months ago on the orders of the former health secretary

LARKANA: Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH) Larkana’s Diabetic Foot Ward has been closed for the last five months, causing trouble to the patients.

It was closed down on the orders of former Sindh Health Secretary Dr Fazalullah Pechuho who had directed officials to relocate the same ward to the Medicine Department, but the officials failed to comply with the directives and the affected patients are now running from pillar to post to get treatment.

This ward was established in the Orthopedics Surgery Department in 1985, which started working properly in 1989, and continued to provide medical treatment and surgical facilities till April 2018 to poor patients suffering from gangrene.

Pechuho directed CMCH Medical Superintendent Dr Ali Gohar Dahri to establish a separate ward in Medical Ward-1 where diabetic patients’ OPD had been established, so that patients’ sugar levels could be controlled at the very outset and when the patients were fit for the operation, their amputation would be carried out by orthopedic doctors.



Prof Jagdesh Kumar, Head of Orthopedic Surgery, said that a meeting was headed by the health secretary and Benazir Bhutto Medical University (BBMU) former vice chancellor, in which it was decided that patients should first be admitted to the medical unit and then shifted to the ortho ward for surgery because their sugar levels could not be maintained.

Prof Hakim Ali Abro, Head of Medical Unit-1, said that they had acute shortage of doctors and paramedics, hence the ward could not be established till trained staff was provided. MS Dahri, said that neither BBMU nor Chandka Medical College (CMC) has a post-graduate specialist doctor for diabetes. He said diabetic patients were being examined in the diabetic OPD by doctors of Medical Unit-I where such patients could not be admitted.

Insiders said that due to frequent deaths in the ortho ward, the Diabetic Foot Ward was closed down because most deaths were caused by high sugar levels and other complications which the ortho doctors could not handle. They said most patients were above the age of 40.

Dr Jahangir Awan, who runs the diabetic OPD, said, “We are running the Diabetic OPD and patients are being treated free of cost. Previously, the OPD was running for two days a week and 600 to 700 diabetic patients were being treated, but now the OPD is being run daily and approximately 150 patients are examined. There was only one such facility in upper Sindh where poor patients from Balochistan were also treated.

Patients have demanded the government to take notice of the issue and order establishment of the ward immediately whilst also hiring a diabetic specialist either in CMC or BBMU.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2018.