Summer woes: Without airconditioning, PIMS turns into an oven

The hospital does not have enough fans to cover entire wards.

ISLAMABAD:

The scorching summer heat has transformed the wards in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) into a cesspool of sweat.

With the hospital’s airconditioning down, and the number of ceiling and bracket fans not enough to cover entire wards, patients have been forced to use hand fans, dupattas and newspapers to fan themselves.

Even in the emergency ward, patients on stretchers have had to rely on their attendants. Arshad, accompanying an injured man in the ward, said, “In this country, the poor have to suffer everywhere, whether it is in the hospital or on the roads.”

He said he was finding it hard to breathe himself in the suffocated ward and could only imagine what his patient, who got injured in a road accident, must be going through.

Official sources said the airconditioning in the blood bank and the surgical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) are also not fully functional. Of the seven air conditioners installed at the ICU, only two are functional at a given time.

This makes maintaining a certain temperature in a ward a challenge, posing an additional level of risk to the admitted patients, said an official.

A senior doctor at the hospital, asking not to be named, said patients at the hospital are at the risk of developing bed sores, infections due to excessive sweating, suffocation, shortening of breath resulting in cardiac arrest, headaches and nausea among other things.

The doctor added that the patients’ attendants bring perishable food items with them, which gets bad in the heat and results in pungent smell throughout the wards.

Pims Spokesperson Dr Waseem Khawaja said the airconditioning plant in the hospital has been not working for the past 18 months. He said Rs100 million are required for installing a new cooling system in the hospital, but the hospital is yet to receive the funds.

Meanwhile, he said, the administration has installed fans in wards across the hospital.

He added that they will install more fans “soon”. Private wards, however, have airconditioners, he added.

Delayed cardiac centre earns minister’s rebuke

In a meeting on Monday, Federal Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), Nazar M.Gondal, took note of delay in the completion of the cardiac centre at the hospital. He termed the delay “unacceptable” and directed officials to identify and punish those responsible for the delay.

“There are heart patients who are poor and cannot afford treatment at private hospitals,” he said. The deadline to complete the centre was June 2012. “I want responsibility to be fixed for the gross negligence,” said the minister.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2012.