Pind Dadan Khan hospital faces misdiagnosis crisis

The Pind Dadan Khan Tehsil Headquarters Hospital has been observed to fall below standards, which has especially posed problems for the poor stratum of society.

In a number of cases, patients have reported instances of neglect and incompetency by doctors at the hospital. Patients who visited the hospital on account of stomach and back pain complained that the doctors after declaring that they have a heart problem referred them to Rawalpindi.

The same has happened with patients who checked into the hospital’s emergency room. The poor patient, who is already worried, is caused further trouble and he immediately hires a car worth Rs25,000 for Rawalpindi. When she gets checked by a heart specialist in a pricier Rawalpindi hospital, the patient is told that she has no heart problem. Many incidents like this have been reported in the past few days.

A leading cause of the repeated misdiagnosis has been identified as the hospital’s substandard ECG machines and automatic blood pressure machines, which keep failing and misreading patients’ blood pressure levels.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2024.