The 30-year-old Kashmiri woman has been denied for the third time by doctors at Polyclinic. PHOTO: THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE
Nazeem Akhtar has spent the last few days running around Polyclinic Hospital, waiting for a thyroid surgery. The 30-year-old Kashmiri woman has been denied for the third time by doctors at Polyclinic, which she claims is because the machines required for the surgery are out of order.
She has a swollen lymph node in her neck, and whenever she comes for the procedure on the dates given by doctors, hospital staff further delay it. Now she has to wait till June.
“I can’t wait till June because the pain is unbearable and I can’t afford living in Rawalpindi. I can’t eat, sleep or walk. I wish the doctors could feel the pain I am suffering,” Akhtar told The Express Tribune.
She lives with her husband — a labourer — in a small rented room in Pirwadhai, for which they pay Rs 3,000 monthly rent. Hardly anything is left for other expenses after adding food to the equation.
“We have been living in Rawalpindi for the last four months just waiting for the surgery. Life has become very difficult for both of us… most of the time we do not even have anything to eat. We only eat when my husband gets some work,” she said.
They both cannot afford to go back to Kashmir as they cannot afford to shuttle back and forth on the date given for the surgery.
Her elder brother Mushtaq, who works at a roadside restaurant in Pirwadhai, is trying to facilitate his sister and her husband by giving them money to pay the rent and get some food.
“I usually try to get some leftovers for them from the restaurant so that my sister can take her medicine,” Mushtaq told The Express Tribune.
Polyclinic Hospital Spokesman Dr Sharif Astori admitted that a large number of patients are on the waiting list and some must wait for months for their surgeries to be carried out.
He said that every day, over 100 surgeries are carried out at Polyclinic Hospital. He said the delays are because of a number of reasons, which include an acute shortage of beds, as there are only 550 beds in the hospital, while 262 posts including those of technicians required by the operation theatre are vacant.
Relating to Akhtar’s case, he said, “First preference at public hospitals is always being given to government employees, then to the residents of the city (Islamabad) and then to the residents of other areas.”
He said machinery is not required to carry out a thyroid surgery, and would look into the woman’s claim.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 7th, 2013.
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