Nonfunctional chillers: Juggling disease and heat on both hands

Lack of proper cooling system in the scorching weather is adding to patients’ plight.

ISLAMABAD:

Patients at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) are facing inconvenience due to the barely-functioning cooling system at the hospital.

Most chillers installed in the main building of Pims are out of order or have gotten rusted. Official sources said five chillers were installed in the main building of the hospital when it was established back in 1985. However, now only one is left to cool the entire block, which has 12 wards, each housing 50-60 patients.

There are fifteen outpatient departments, where about 3,500 patients and their attendants visit daily. These patients are on the mercy of ceiling fans and a few air conditioners, most of which do not work. The situation is worst in medical ward 3, as none of the fans were working and the patients there were sweating badly.

“For the last few days, the fans and air conditioner are out of order, making it difficult for us to stay here. But we cannot leave our patients alone,” said an attendant, Yousuf Khan.

“I am unable to sleep soundly because of the heat. It is affecting me both physically and psychologically,” said Muhammad Shahid* a patient admitted in the ward told The Express Tribune.

He added that due to his illness, he cannot go outside the ward when the heat becomes too much to bear. So his old mother fans him using a paper or a hand fan.

Upon entering the building, one can witness majority of the attendants sitting in long queues waiting for the doctors, using dupattas, newspaper or hand fans to fan themselves. There are no arrangements outside the hospital building for the attendants or the patients in the scorching heat, she lamented.

Sitting outside in the lawn of the hospital, Naseema Khan, another attendant said as she tried to soothe her two kids, “My children were screaming inside because of the scorching heat, so I brought them out here. But it’s not helping.”

A nurse speaking on condition of anonymity told The Express Tribune, “During peak hours when the building is flooded with patients and attendants, it becomes too difficult to even breathe due to heat and suffocation.”

A Pims official, asking not to be named, said the administration has not been able to get the chillers fixed as it costs millions of rupees.

*Name changed upon request

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2011.