KARACHI: Labour operation theatre at CHK inaugurated
KARACHI, July 25: The Sindh health secretary, Khalid Latif Choudhry, has said 29 projects of the Civil Hospital, Karachi, have been completed under public-private partnership with the cooperation of philanthropists.
He said this while inaugurating the Rs85 million Labour Operation Theatre and Obstetrics Unit at the CHK, near its main gate, and a computerized information centre here on Thursday.
The health secretary observed that increased availability of medical facilities had bolstered the confidence of philanthropists. He said the government alone could not solve health-related problems.
He said that with the cooperation of philanthropists, the country’s first Burns Centre had also been established at the Civil Hospital, and it was a model example of public-private partnership. He said the patients with burn injuries would get modern treatment facilities at this centre.
Speaking at the ceremony, the CHK’s medical superintendent, Dr Naushad Shaikh, said 19 outpatient departments of this hospital were catering to the medical needs of more than 3,000 patients daily whereas about 600 patients were handled at the emergency ward.
He said over 300 operations were carried out daily in the CHK’s 11 operation theatres.
Dr Naushad said the hospital had been made a model with the personal efforts put in by the health minister and the secretary.
An average Pakistani woman is most likely to become mother in her teens and deliver at home without any professional assistance.
According to the WHO, only 18 per cent of these mothers get some skilled help and only 15 per cent avail hospital facilities.
A woman in Pakistan is almost 40 times more likely to die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth than a woman in the developed world.
Another 20 per cent die because of aggravation of existing diseases due to pregnancy. Thus one woman dies in every 250 births in Pakistan, and this could be more as a lot of cases go unrecorded.
Although women are moving in the forefront of our National Agenda of social, cultural, economical and political development, the efforts have not led to significant improvement in terms of social status, gender equity and their right to a safe and productive pregnancy.
Women in Pakistan have near-total control over family care and household management but have a limited control over their reproductive life and they bear the greatest burden of human deprivation.
The Safe Motherhood project of the Civil Hospital is an effort by the medical community to reduce this burden to some extent by providing efficient and appropriate emergency obstetric care at the hospital.
The project envisages a modern labour room and gynae obstetrics emergency room at the CHK for the poor and deprived women of our society.
Currently 4,015 patients are admitted, out of which 64 per cent need emergency obstetric care and most are in critical condition. Just as alarming is the fact that 187 of the babies are born dead and 180 die in the first month of birth.
These figures can be reduced and numerous mothers and babies saved by just providing monitoring equipment and adequate obstetric care at the health facility.
The labour room inaugurated on Thursday by the health secretary has all the latest maternal and foetal monitors and gynae obs facilities and will provide compassionate and easy access to timely appropriate obstetric care at the CHK.
This will save the critical time for the mother, making her chances of survival excellent and her motherhood safe and productive.—APP
