Mismanagement galore: Two years after new TB building completed, makeshift arrangements continue next door

While x-ray machines rust in storage, patients referred to other cities.

ISLAMABAD:

For the past five years hundreds of patients visiting Tuberculosis (TB) Hospital, Rawalpindi have been suffering due to non-availability of diagnostic equipment and shortage of technical staff. This at times leads to the wrong diagnosis, prolonging the suffering of TB patients whose disease is detected too late.

The absence of an elevator at the TB hospital makes it difficult for elderly patients to reach the fourth floor to get their medicines. Sakeena Bibi, 50, a resident of Waris Khan is amongst those who find it difficult to climb to the fourth floor to get her medicines every week. After climbing every two, three steps she would curse the hospital administration for not providing an elevator for patients like her who are too weak to climb the stairs.

“Every week I’ve to climb this mountain just to get my medicine and if I need an x-ray for which there is no facility here, I’ve to go to the TB Hospital in Murree. What a tragedy for people like us,” she said, while talking to The Express Tribune. Her disease has entered the fourth stage; she was out of breath and had broken out in a sweat. Her son, Farhan, who is a daily wager, said they couldn’t even bear travel expenses within the city let alone Murree.

Dr Asadullah Nemati, senior physician at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) said, “Nearly every day I receive patients who are tested negative at TB Centre Rawalpindi but test positive at Pims.”

“The main obstacle is indecision on part of the federal government and deadlock over the possession and inauguration of the new building completed two years back,” said an official requesting anonymity, when questioned about the present state of affairs. In 2008 the old TB centre building was demolished to construct a state-of-the-art building, he stated. “The TB centre was temporarily shifted to an adjacent residential block. However due to lack of space some equipment including x-ray machines was placed in the store room and are now rusting.”

Patients are asked to go to a TB Hospital in Murree or to private laboratories which obviously many cannot afford, due to the non-availability of x-ray machines, he added. “After the devolution of the health ministry the provincial government had asked the federal government to hand over the financially-crippled hospital to them.”

When contacted, Administration Officer Shakirullah Jan said, “Patients are suffering for the past five years after the demolition of the old TB centre building, but we are going to shift to the new building this week where patients will be provided all facilities.” The hospital comes under the Cabinet Division which is responsible for funding and has nothing to do with the provincial government, he added, claiming that the hospital was not faced with a shortage of funds or any other issue including the availability of medicines.

A senior doctor who is looking after healthcare services at the district level said most basic health units and rural health centres in Punjab including Rawalpindi district lacked diagnostic facilities and technical staff to deal with TB patients.

The majority of patients usually stop treatment due to travel expenses and long queues in hospitals and they suffer more, he added.

World Health Organisation’s National Professional Officer for TB Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi hoped that the long-delayed process of project approval and release of funds for TB control would be resolved soon. In Pakistan in 2012 over 284,000 cases of TB had been detected and given treatment while this year the figure will touch around 300,000, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2013.