Patients made to wait a year for operations at Rawalpindi hospital

Shortage of facilities, funds leads to delay in surgical procedures

RAWALPINDI: Thousands of cardiac patients awaiting operations are suffering due to lack of facilities at the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC), sources informed The Express Tribune.

RIC management has given waiting period of almost a year to many patients seeking necessary surgical procedures due to lack of beds and shortage of funds at the hospital.

The RIC is only equipped with total of 24 recovery beds. Of these 12 each are for two recovery phases, where patients were shifted immediately after their surgeries. Only a dozen beds are not enough for a cardiac care hospital in a sprawling metropolis of Rawalpindi. The shortage of beds thus impedes surgical procedures in the hospital.

The patients were given time for the operations as per timetable of the vacancy of beds on first-come-first-serve basis, hospital sources said.

Meanwhile, the hospital is only providing single-chamber ventricular demand (VVIR) to the needy cardiac patients. The patients requiring dual-chamber rate-modulated (DDDR) pacemaker, which recorded both atrial and ventricular rates and pace either chamber when needed, are asked to arrange it on their own. The DDDR costs up to Rs300,000 and the hospital asks the patients to manage on their own due to its unavailability and the hospital’s shortage of funds.

According to sources in RIC, the hospital has limited funds and according to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) only single chamber VVIR was currently available.

The sources added that DDDR pacemaker was only supplied by three private companies only against cash however the hospital was unable to afford it due to lack of funds. Sources further informed that due to the increasing number of patients heading to RIC every passing day, the patients were asked to arrange it for themselves.

Regarding delay in operations and advance dates of up to one year, the sources said that the first major reason was shortage of recovery beds in the hospital where patients were moved immediately. There were only 12 beds each for the first and second phase of recovery after the operation.

Long delays in surgical procedures would only be eliminated if the number of beds was doubled in both phases, sources informed, adding that there was also a dire need to increase staff in the hospital.

It is notable that RIC performed operations on thousands of patients coming from different parts of the country since its establishment seven-years ago however there is still a long list of patients waiting to be operated and waiting for their treatment to be completed.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2019.