MULTAN, Jan 11: Provincial minister Rana Qasim Noon paid a surprise visit of the Nishtar Hospital on Sunday and was taken aback over the state of affairs there.

The minister for agriculture marketing, Qasim Noon raided the hospital to what he later on told the newsmen check veracity of the claims of the hospital authorities that 'high quality patient care had been ensured at the hospital'.

According to an official handout, when the minister reached the emergency ward of the hospital, he found medical officer Dr Liaquat and radiologist Dr Abdul Haq absent. Moreover, some foul smell in the ward was unbearable.

Attendants and families of the patients were vocal against the doctors, staff and overall management of the hospital. "They alleged that the doctors of the hospital were rather butchers instead of healers," the handout added.

The attendant of electrocuted injured Falak Sher told the minister that he had been crying for doctors' attention for the last half-an-hour but to no avail. Later on, the minister went to the neurosurgery ward and found only one doctor there to look after the patients.

The doctor told the minister that he was a general surgeon and that he also had to go to the operation theatre for an operation and afterwards there would be no one to take care of the patients.

He further said that no one wanted to serve at the ward. Stinking waste water was reportedly flowing in the ward from choked sewer lines. Patients at the neurosurgery ward told the minister that the CT scan machine of the hospital had been out of order for the last two months and alleged that some senior doctors of the ward had deliberately turned the machine dysfunctional so that the patients had to visit their private clinics and hospitals for the purpose. They said that they charged Rs 2,500 for one CT scan at their private clinics and hospitals.

An injured child, Muhammad Younas of Gujrat village of Muzaffargarh district, had also been there for the last three days in serious condition. His father Allah Ditta told the minister that the doctors had refused to operate his son at the hospital and when he insisted that he could only afford to have his son operated upon at an official hospital, a doctor misbehaved with him and threatened that he would throw his son out of the window.

The minister visited some other wards of the hospital as well and found the same dismal situation at all places. He also paid visit to the hospital canteen and found its premises unclean. The eatables being sold there had high prices as compared to the market.

Talking to newsmen, the minister said he would bring the "extremely deplorable condition of the state of affairs at the hospital" to the notice of the Punjab chief minister viz-a-viz unhygienic conditions, shortage of medicines and prevalence of inhuman, unethical and absenteeism culture among the doctors of the hospital.

He regretted that the hospital was once ranked among the top hospitals of the country and now its management board chairman Syed Hamid Raza Gilani had to be admitted at a hospital in Lahore for his treatment. He commented that the hospital was decaying in all departments.