Fire incidents: ‘No maintenance dept at hospitals’

YDA said number of fires at public hospitals was increasing because of no maintenance department at hospitals.

LAHORE: The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Pakistan on Tuesday said that the number of fires at public hospitals was increasing because there was no maintenance and repairs department at the government hospitals. The association’s spokesperson Dr Salman Kazmi said that none of the public hospitals in Lahore had a maintenance and repairs department. Moreover, he said, all government hospitals are functioning without a biomedical engineer. In their place, said Kazmi, two to three daily-wage employees had been hired to look after electromagnetic equipment in the hospitals. He urged the government to take notice of the situation and hire a biomedical engineer to head maintenance and repairs department in each hospital. Otherwise, he warned, incidents of short circuiting causing fires will not be controlled.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2012.