Polyclinic emergency department’s expansion on the cards

Official says doctors have to face difficulties in coping with emergencies due to lack of space

ISLAMABAD:

The administration of the Federal Government Services Hospital better known as Polyclinic is planning to expand the emergency department owing to the heavy daily patient load.

Every day thousands of patients seek treatment at the emergency department of the second largest government hospital in Islamabad, but due to a lack of space, doctors and the paramedical staff have to face difficulties in coping with emergencies. The hospital administration has begun to work on the expansion plan of the emergency department.

The hospital administration has proposed the expansion of the emergency department at a location where the doctors' hostel has been proposed to be built. Polyclinic Assistant Executive Director and spokesperson Dr Abdul Jabbar Bhutto talking to The Express Tribune said that the burden of patients in the emergency department was increasing with each passing day.” More than a thousand patients are brought to the hospital’s emergency daily and most of them are those who meet road accidents.”

He said that patients suffering from flu, indigestion and other ailments are also taken care of at the emergency. He said that the administration is trying its best to provide all possible facilities to the patients in the emergency department, but due to lack of space, patients have to face difficulties in getting space and better services.

Dr Bhutto said that Executive Director Dr Shahid Hanif has started efforts to expand the emergency department and it has been proposed to expand the emergency block in place of the proposed doctors’ hostel. He said that a list of specialist doctors has been prepared to timely deal with emergencies. Dr Bhutto said that previously, special list doctors were available only on call. He said that there is a huge workload of patients in the outpatient department (OPD) of the hospital.

He said that at present, around 9,000 patients visit the OPDs daily and they are provided with free medical examination, laboratory test facilities and medicines. The Polyclinic is the only government hospital in the capital where patients are provided with services in morning and evening shifts and more than one million patients visit the hospital in the morning shift every year and more than 140,000 patients in the evening shift.