Eroding health facilities: Injuries can get bad to worse at province’s largest hospital

Stretchers without foams, pits on the floors only worsen patients’ conditions.

PESHAWAR:

For patients at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), shifting from one ward to another is one bumpy ride.

“I have a serious leg injury and the stretcher has neither foam nor any protection, while the pits on the floor have increased the swelling,” said a patient, Irfanullah.

Most stretchers at the province’s largest hospital are left with nothing but a steal frame, which coupled with an absence of smooth ramps and pits on the floor, only worsens conditions for patients.

“We have to carry our patient to surgical C ward from the emergency unit and the stretcher cannot by be carried by one person because of its poor condition and cavities on the floor,” said attendant, Abdur Rehman, who was carrying his relative with two other people.

“It’s like the patient is lying on steel because the foam on the stretcher is missing. We have to carry our relative very slowly towards the orthopedic ward,” said another attendant Saeed Khan.



Former medical superintendent Dr Rahim Jan had a plan to construct a smooth ramp in the hospital, but when he was appointed as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) the administration ignored the project altogether.

LRH spokesperson Hayat Muhammad Khan said that they had received a number of complaints and the administration and will soon buy some new stretchers.

When 18 wounded victims were taken to the hospital after a blast in Mattani in September, relatives had to carry their family members on their backs because there were not enough stretchers. Some people even brought mattresses from home.

Medical Superintendent Dr Iqbal Afridi acknowledged problems faced by patients, especially those being treated in distant wards. He said, however, that construction work is underway.



“The hospital will open a new emergency unit in a month and we have purchased medical instruments worth Rs80 million that include 150 new beds, 40 stretchers, 40 wheel chairs and X-ray machines.” Dr Afridi said.

The LRH was established in 1924 and is the largest medical institute in the province with 1,533 hospital beds. The hospital administration claims it receives four to five thousand patients daily.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2012.