A hospital without water

The circumstances at Jinnah Hospital are bleak at best and authorities should urgently act to improve them.

Not that being a doctor has ever been a glamorous job, contrary to what is sometimes portrayed on television and in movies, but being a doctor in Pakistan is sometimes the antithesis of a glamorous job. Take, for example, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in Karachi, which houses one of the largest public hospitals in the country. The hospital currently faces a water shortage with visitors having to run back and forth from neighbouring restaurants and mosques to secure water for themselves. The hospital, unfortunately, is in such poor condition that visitors coming from hours away are made to wait out on the footpath for several days because all wards are occupied. Given the bleak circumstances at Jinnah Hospital, all authorities concerned are asked to urgently act to improve the distressing situation.

Water is vital to life, especially for the ill. The fact that the hospital runs out of drinking water is a shame and points to the hospital’s incompetency. A second fact pointing to this is the lack of water in its lavatories, which is essential for obvious hygiene purposes. Hygiene is a top priority of hospitals the world over and it is terrible that it is not even on the priority list for this hospital located in Pakistan’s largest city. Further woeful is that a senior official at the hospital alleges a high portion of the water is being diverted to the hospital’s laundry, which is being used on a commercial basis by nearby drycleaners and residents. This practice is unethical and if true, must be stopped immediately, by the hospital administration.

Rather than playing the blame game of not enough water being supplied by the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) or the hospital administration not doing an efficient job of allocating the water, a problem has been identified and a solution must now be found. The way to go about finding this solution is by calling the KWSB and the Jinnah Hospital administration to sit with the Public Works Department, which is responsible for the maintenance of the hospital, and first dissect the causes of the problem. Solutions then need to be found — and quickly, before the situation deteriorates further.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 15^th, 2013.

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