Punjab

Revamp forces closure of Holy Family

YDA says patients will suffer due to shutdown of Rawalpindi's largest hospital

Jamil Mirza October 26, 2023

Rohan Aggarwal, 26, a resident doctor treating patients suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), tends to a patient inside the emergency room of Holy Family Hospital, during his 27-hour shift in New Delhi, India, May 1, 2021. Aggarwal says he fears what will happen if he gets infected, too, knowing that his own hospital will be unlikely to find him a bed. He is unvaccinated: He was sick in January when shots for medical professionals were being rolled out, and then by February, he began to relax. "We were all under the misconception the virus had gone," he said. REUTERS

RAWALPINDI:

Due to the commencement of work on the upgrade and renovation project worth Rs2 billion, the Holy Family Hospital (HFH) – Rawalpindi’s large public sector healthcare facility which was established in 1943 – has been completely closed for patients.

The patients were transferred to four other hospitals in the city, including Benazir Bhutto General Hospital, District Headquarters Hospital, Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplantation and Red Crescent Hospital.

The valuable machinery of the hospital worth millions of rupees was moved to the hospital’s old building, while the furniture of the 1100-bed facility was placed under the open sky.

According to sources, due to the rush of patients in the other public hospitals, the healthcare system at these hospitals has become overburdened.

After the necessary renovation of the old building, the emergency department, operation theatres, wards, OPD department, laboratory and blood bank have been completely shut down and the building has been handed over to the C&W department ahead of the start of work on the three-month upgradation and renovation project of the new spacious building of the hospital.

Read: Holy Family readies for renovation

With the complete shutdown of the hospital’s treatment system, the administration block in the old building has been retained while the valuable machinery worth millions of rupees has been shifted to other parts of the old block.

YDA flays closure

Talking to The Express Tribune, Young Doctor Association’s HFH President, Dr Shafi Niazi, said: “Patients have been victimised by completely closing down the hospital.” He lamented that there was no justification for the complete closure of the ICU, CCU, dialysis centre, surgery and medicine wards, emergency and the out-patient department in the hospital.

“Upgradation and renovation of the building should have been done block-wise so that the patients may not have faced the difficulties,” he suggested. “Now patients of the 1,100-bed health facility have been transferred to other hospitals, where there were already a large number of patients. In this way, the healthcare system has become paralysed in these hospitals as well,” he said.

Working coordination

On the other hand, HFH Medical Superintendent Dr Ijaz Butt said the administration block in the old building of the hospital has been maintained and the valuable machinery worth millions of rupees has been shifted to other parts with complete safety.

“These rooms have been locked keeping the MRI and CT scan machines at the locations where they were installed,” he explained. “However, other items are kept in the open air, which will also be moved to a safe location,” he added.

The MS said: “Since all the departments of the hospital have been closed for upgradation and renovation work, the patients of all the departments have been shifted to the other four hospitals through the transport facility.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2023.