24 April 2004	Saturday	03 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR, April 23: The workload in city hospitals is affecting the performance of health workers, hospital sources said. Patients admitted to a hospital are being advised all kinds of routine tests , which affected the performance of laboratory, ECG, operation theatre and X-ray technicians, said a technician at a city hospital.

He said that nearly 200 patients were hospitalized on a daily basis in the Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex and almost all of them were being advised X-ray test, urine and routine blood examination, besides being asked to undergo an ECG examination.

"Doctors do not bother whether all of their patients need these tests or not, but fill in investigation forms for all the newly-admitted patients," said a laboratory technician. He said that they had a workforce of 20 technicians in the morning shift, who were supposed to cater to the blood and urine tests of about 300 patients.

"Only patients suffering from cardiac ailments or those to be operated upon needed ECGs, but 100 per cent of the indoor patients are being advised ECG by the doctors", said a cardiologist. He said that they had three technicians, who were required to perform tests on more than a 100 patients.

"Many a times, the ECGs of normal patients turns out to be incorrect because of the extensive work-load", cardiologist said. As a matter of routine, he said, many laboratory technicians just look at blood or urine samples and write reports without analysing them, he said.

The problem of workload is very acute, a surgeon said. According to him, he took biopsy from a patient to be investigated for cancer. One of the hospital reported the patients as positive for cancer and he started anti-cancer therapy.

"The same patient was declared as normal when his biopsy test was carried out in Islamabad. But, the patient had already consumed cancer treatment drugs worth Rs100,000," he said, adding that the cancer drugs also had side affects.

Blunders are commonplace at these hospitals but only because of a shortage of staff, said a pathologist, adding that most of the staff at the hospitals were well qualified but the workload had been affecting their performance, which ultimately affected the patients well-being.