KARACHI, March 27: The state-owned healthcare facilities in Karachi, built at considerable cost to taxpayers, compare poorly to other parts of the province in terms of services provided to the ill. This is despite the fact that the other districts are generally less developed.
This was stated on Thursday by Dr Asif Aslam of UNICEF in his brief talk during the inauguration ceremony of the labour rooms in the Sindh Government Qatar Hospital. The new labour rooms have been constructed at a cost of only Rs500,000 which was donated by a philanthropic organization.
In the prevailing circumstances, he said, there was little option for the Karachiites other than to ‘buy’ the services they required from private facilities.
Suggesting, however, that not all was lost vis-a-vis government healthcare facilities, Dr Aslam gave the example of Qatar Hospital where, he said, the quality of services had improved considerably during the last 10 years or so.
“Where we have dedicated people, lack of funds doesn’t pose much of a problem,” he said. “Private organizations and entrepreneurs are more than willing to donate money in initiatives in which they feel their money will not be misused or wasted.”
Dr Shershah Syed, associate professor at the hospital’s department of obstetrics and gynaecology, on the occasion said maternal deaths in the city might be halved within six months if the services provided at the peripheral maternity homes were improved.
He said in designing the new labour rooms, his team had ensured that the dignity of the patients wasn’t compromised in any way. The recipient of this year’s award of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics thanked the people who had donated generously for some projects of his hospital.
Zaigham Rizvi, who donated the amount with the help of which the new labour rooms have been built, said a lot of questions were raised about each rupee that an organization donated to charity. “People raise a lot of questions during the Annual General Meetings etc.
“This is a serious issue which should be resolved as soon as possible.” He suggested that each corporate entity should allocate a small proportion of its profit to social work.
Dr Sadiqua Jafarey, who presided over the simple ceremony, said up to 25 per cent of the pregnant women who were taken to the JPMC after complications died on the way. “This is due to delays within the homes and on the way to the hospital,” she said.
“The time that is spent in deciding whether a pregnant woman should be taken to the hospital or not, and also on the way, is absolutely crucial for the lives of pregnant women.
“This fact is underscored by the fact that most women who are brought dead to the JPMC belong to Malir and Korangi areas, which are not far.” The professor talked at length at the need for the health department to create conditions so that not much time was unnecessarily lost inside the hospitals.
Many pregnant women were malnourished, she pointed out. “This is one big reason why many children are born underweight. The easiest way to take care of the newborns was to take care of the pregnant women.”
The Qatar Hospital’s AMS, Dr Jamaluddin Sheikh, and its MS, Dr Nasrullah Malik, also spoke.
