KARACHI, May 18: Doctors at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital stayed away from the operation theatres on Saturday in protest against the negligence of the administration.

Hospital staff said the autoclave of the emergency operation theatre, which was used for the sterilization of surgical instruments, had been on the blink for the past few months. “On Friday, the instrument blew up following an explosion which was so intense that the six people in the room had a narrow shave.”

Abbasi Shaheed Hospital has three general operation theatres: gynaecology, surgery and urology. It also has one ENT operation theatre, one eye operation theatre, one orthopaedic operation theatre, one neurosurgery operation theatre and one emergency operation theatre.

The doctors said that while most operation theatres had remained closed, they had run the emergency operation theatre by bringing the sterilization device from another operation theatre.

They added that the city government was not doing anything to repair or renovate the defective equipment.

“The ECG device at the casualty department of the hospital has been out of order for the past six months. Technical staff maintain that there is something wrong with the lead of the device which is not very expensive, but the city government has not even tried to repair the device.”