January 4, 2003	Saturday	Shawwal 30, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: The four major hospitals of the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad received as many as 294 burn victims during the year 2002 out of which 217 died due to lack of proper facilities and hospital acquired infections.

The Progressive Women’s Association (PWA) president, Shahnaz Bukhari, while launching the PWA’s annual report told reporters here on Friday that this data has been collected from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH), Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH) and District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ).

She regretted that only four cases, out of the 294, were registered by the police, while the rest were settled through forced agreements or bribery, at different stages of the cases. “The figure is just a tip of the iceberg,” she observed.

She said out of the 294 cases, 146 women were unmarried and were victims of “honour” while only five women committed suicide. About 156 of the victims (53 per cent) were below the age of 20 years, she added.

She said due to the absence of proper clean environment and non-professional burns units, a victim having 30 per cent burns could not survive due to severe infections.

The PWA president said, in countries like Bangladesh, where the number of acid burn cases were very high, a victim of 60 per cent burn survives because of professional handling.

She said these four hospitals received 26 cases from Rawalpindi city, 21 from Islamabad, 38 from Chakwal, 26 from Murree, 22 from Attock, 10 from Fatehjang, 27 from Azad Kashmir, 14 from Taxila, one from Chicha Watni, 46 from Gujar Khan, 16 from Kahuta, 10 from Kotly Satian, 10 from Chauntra, two from Khushab, one from Faisalabad, four from Abbotabad and seven from Jhang Saydan.