Gadap hospital

Agovernment hospital, with a swanky building, started functioning in Gadap Town of Karachi in March 2018, but despite the passage of more than two years the 50-bed healthcare facility opens only for five hours in the morning and tends to hardly 70 patients a day. “At least it is functioning,” an employee said with a wry smile. Shifting of patients in need of emergency care to city hospitals is delayed for want of ambulance near the hospital situated in an urban rural area much distant from the main city. The hospital has only one ambulance which is now reportedly in use of the hospital’s medical superintendent.

This is the state of affairs at a hospital visited by patients from many villages and also from as far away as Dadu district and Lasbela district of Balochistan. Residents of the area are poor and few health facilities are available to them. Even for treatment of ordinary ailments they have to visit hospitals in Karachi city. For lack of ambulance services and public transport, they have to hire taxi cabs for Rs2,000 which is quite a big amount for people with limited means. People felt great relief when the hospital close to their villages began functioning, but this relief proved short-lived as the hospital is serving them only partially.

Gadap Town is situated in Malir district where schools and hospitals are poorly funded and poorly managed. Now more than 30 public-sector hospitals are being run under public-private partnership with a view to improving facilities at these hospitals. As government officials are reportedly unwilling to work, it looks probable that this hospital would soon be handed over to a private organisation. Officials of the provincial health department are evading probing questions from journalists. The hospital’s infrastructure is in a state of neglect. We should not be very alarmed as now a great many things are called hospitals and schools which were not called hospitals and schools before.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2020.

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