Capital residents urge PIMS OPD to open on Sundays

due to heavy load on working days and limited hospital timings

ISLAMABAD: In view of a greater demand for better healthcare and to avoid heavy rush at hospitals and clinics, residents of the federal capital have demanded the authorities concerned to immediately start a fully-fledged Sunday shift at the Out Patient Department (OPD) of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims ), keeping in view the patients’ burden on working days.

According to them, there is a need to open the OPD department on Sundays due to heavy load at the on working days and limited hospital timings, several patients, who come from far-flung areas of the country, face several problems and do not get a chance to consult doctors .

They said many of these people face hardships as despite serious nature of illness, they have to wait for Monday as the OPD at Pims remains closed on Sunday while the emergency department only receives different nature of patients like trauma or accident victims.

“I visited hospital’s OPD on Sunday for follow up check up after surgery to consult my doctor but due to closure of OPD, I had to move to emergency but the doctors refused my check up by saying that we provide treatment to only serious patients,” Arshad Malik, a patient said.

He also complained of inadequate staff at the Pims emergency and OPD and appealed to deploy sufficient medical and paramedical staff for delivery of better services to the patients.

“Unlike medical practices abroad where one doctor examines five to seven patients in a day, at the Pims each doctor has to examine around 100 patients daily at the OPD,” Salim Khalid, another patient said.

He asked the quarters concerned to take notice of absence of senior doctors at the OPD and different wards during duty hours.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2018.