27 October 2004	Wednesday	12 Ramazan 1425

PESHAWAR, Oct 26: Shortage of equipment in city hospitals is causing problem in diagnosis and treatment, patients and their relatives told this correspondent.

"I took my mother to the Khyber Teaching Hospital last night where doctors in the casualty department referred her to the medical ward. When the doctor there began to examine my mother it was found that the blood-pressure apparatus was not functioning," said Afzal Khan of the Pawaka locality.

According to him, since his mother was a known patient of hypertension, he rushed to the casualty ward to borrow their blood pressure set. "But to my extreme disappointment, it was also found to be out of order. And to make matter worse, the doctor prescribed a drug that sent her blood pressure alarmingly low," he complained.

Another man, Alamgir Khan, said he got his father was admitted to the Lady Reading Hospital with high fever. "There was no thermometer in the medical ward and I had to purchase one from the market," he claimed.

People visiting emergency wards in these hospitals have also suffered because of non-availability of tools like scissors, forceps, surgical knives, syringes etc.

"My son got injured when he fell from the roof. We took him to a nearby medical complex where a doctor asked me to bring surgical cord and other necessary material from the market to stitch the wounds," said Azizur Rehman of the Hayatabad Township.

He said it was late in the night and most of the shops had closed, but he was able to find the required material from a shop after some hectic efforts. It took almost an hour for the technician to get the wounds stitched.

A medical officer in one of the hospitals said instruments sent to hospital stores for repair were never returned, which actually caused their shortage. Despite sending repeated reminders they never bothered to respond, he added.

He said most of the instruments were 20 years old and had become obsolete. The government was not purchasing new instruments that aggravated the problem.

"I took my daughter to an ENT ward in a hospital one afternoon, but was surprised to know that there was no spatula," said a doctor.

A technician said that many hospitals did not have sterilization machines due to which they did dressing and stitching with unsterilized instruments.

"We even have to run after stethoscopes when there is an emergency, as there too are not in sufficient number," said a house officer, who claimed that they had to rush to other wards to get equipment in case of emergency.

Even respiratory monitors in cardiology wards and operation theatres do not function properly, which adds to patients' miseries. A doctor associated with a teaching hospital said that most of the time oxygen cylinders were found to be empty.

"You would not believe it that the entire operation theatre has no torch in functioning state. We have more than one dozen but none of them is functioning," said a senior technician at a teaching hospital.

To add to patients woes, most of the beds, bed-side lockers and drip stands are in bad shape and apparently there are no efforts in line either to repair them. Doctors argue that these hospitals have top quality equipment, but they were in bad condition because of lack of maintenance.