November 17, 2002	Sunday	Ramazan 11, 1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

PESHAWAR, Nov 16: The unsterilised instruments used by the surgeons in the hospitals are the main carriers of contagious diseases.

Doctors at the Khyber College of Dentistry talking to Dawn on Saturday said that the instruments were not sterilised at the treatment centre of their college, which made the patients prone to the infectious diseases, such as Hepatitis and Aids.

A doctor, seeking anonymity, said that the instruments used by the dental surgeons were spreading the infectious disease as they were used for hundreds of the patients without getting it sterilised.

Most of the patients visiting the Khyber College of Dentistry for treatment of their teeth came in contact with the unsterilised instruments. The doctor said that all such mishaps go totally unreported both by the authorities concerned and by the Press and the grisly practice continue unabated.

Even the glass syringes were used in the KCD to administer anaesthesia to the patients and the same syringes were used all the day long and with seldom change of needles. In addition to it the doctors did not use the surgical gloves during their service.

It was revealed that there were no arrangements for the patients to be tested for HIV etc, before being treated. The doctors said that the hospital didn’t offer diagnostic services and it could not send the patients to other hospitals for the patients could not afford the expensive tests.

The doctors said that not only in the KCD but the patients suffering from tooth problems were at the receiving end everywhere in the province.

The dental surgeons in the district headquarters hospitals, civil hospitals and other government-run dental facilities used a few forceps to perform all the procedures, ranging from extraction to filling and RCT of the teeth.

Even the boilers remained out of orders which were used traditionally for sterilisation of medical instruments.

Another doctor said that the medical community has wrongly blaming the barber shops and sale of contaminated stuff in the markets for the increase in the infective ailments.

The dental surgeons, he said, had been infecting the patients with the contagious diseases in a friendly manner.