Child wards out of beds as cold intensifies

K-P’s children finding it hard to fight off seasonal diseases like flu and pneumonia

PESHAWAR:

As the rain breaks Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) dry spell, the ensuing drop in mercury, coupled with a national gas shortage, spells further trouble for the province’s capital’s children and its hospitals which are experiencing a bed shortage.

According to the provincial health department the dry and cold weather has escalated seasonal diseases like pneumonia, flu and tuberculosis (TB) across K-P especially in children. Diseases like TB, which thrive at low temperature, low humidity, and low rainfall, in particular have witnessed a significant uptick as the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar reported that every day around 1,500 children were brought to the emergency department of the hospital out of which on average 30 to 35 patients were severe cases of either pneumonia or TB.

Similarly, Hayatabad Medical Complex has reported receiving more than 100 sick children daily out of which on average 20 to 25 children are admitted due to the severity of their illnesses. Dr Tahir Ahmad, Child Specialist at the Hayatabad Medical Complex, while talking to the Express Tribune said that the influx of sick children was so high that the hospital was facing difficulties in accommodating them. “We have been compelled to admit two or three patients to one bed,” he informed.

Other hospitals which are similarly overburdened and have resorted to two patients per hospital bed, like the Khyber Teaching Hospital, have now sent letters to the provincial health department stating that they can no longer accommodate more patients especially in the nursery and pediatric wards.

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Ahmad informed that a majority of the patients were from other districts of the province and were reporting either pneumonia, TB, or chest infections. “The problem with treating such a massive number of patients from all over the province is that it affects the performance of the already burdened hospitals,” he said. Ahmad was confused about the influx stating that the government has established District Headquarter Hospitals (DHQs) in each district of the province and yet people come to the provincial capital for treatment.

In a bid to collect the total number of admitted patients and to trace what diseases were most common in the province at the moment, the Express Tribune learned that the District Health Information System (DHIS), which collects such data from hospitals, is not updated. Despite repeated attempts to gather data for 2021, the DHIS refused to provide it stating that it was still being compiled and thus could not be shared.

However, according to a DHIS report from July 2020 to December 2020 the pneumonia cases for under 5 year-olds stood at 76,782, and overall suspected TB cases stood at 23,355. If the past trend of illnesses is an indication of what awaits K-P’s residents then, as per Ahmad, the best solution is to heed to all medical advice from doctors.

“Parents should prevent children from going out in the bitter cold and dress them appropriately if they do not want their children to catch a severe disease,” Ahmad cautioned while talking to The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2022.