KIHD angiography department shut down

Doctors send patients to hospitals where they have private practice

KARACHI:

After remaining in dying throes for months, it was the curtains for the angiography department of the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KIHD) as officials pulled the plug and shut it down.

The equipment of the staterun health facility providing free of cost service to cardiac patients was out of order due to which the emergency ward was closed for past many days, officials told The Express Tribune.

KIHD doctors are referring patients to private hospitals rather than providing them with medical assistance because the hospital's angiography machine has been idle for months, and the emergency ward has been inactive.

Sources said that patients are referred to private hospitals where KIHD doctors have private practice.

The KIHD cardiac catheterisation lab has been inactive for several months as well.

The angiography process in the hospital was entirely halted due to the closure of the angiography machine in the Cath Lab.

The Cath Lab's doors are open, but angiography patients are sent back. Private institutions are conducting the test for the patients' families.

It should be noted that angiography is a type of test that is used to examine blood vessels and helps doctors in diagnosing and treating any problems associated with heart disease.

According to the hospital staff, the emergency ward has been closed due to ongoing maintenance work.

The relatives of the patients said that the hospital did not even give first aid to heart attack patients whose condition was critical, and their condition deteriorated due to the transfer to another hospital.

According to KIHD Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Riffat Sultana the hospital has an incinerator.

However she refused to comment on issues like hospital employees discard medical waste outside instead of throwing it in the dustbin without serious consideration and that the staff is absent from the hospital's information desk in several departments