February 16, 2007	Friday	Muharram 27, 1428

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PESHAWAR, Feb 15: Hospital workers are exposed to hepatitis because of lack of protective measures.

During the past year, about 60 health professionals had been diagnosed positive for hepatitis B and C or both. The high incidence of the disease was attributed by various health officials to the prevalent unhygienic conditions coupled with the administration’s failure to adopt preventive measures, doctors and health workers said.

About 16 paramedics at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) had been diagnosed positive either for hepatitis B or C last year, and the number might increase if all hospital employees were tested.

Criticising the lack of adequate protective system in hospital, hospital workers said, some of the hospital staff, like surgeons, laboratory and blood bank technicians and operation theatre assistants, were more at risk because of their working environment in which they frequently come in contact with infected blood.

Some 42 employees of the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and HMC were currently being treated for hepatitis at private clinics, it was learnt.

Doctors argued that health-care workers were particularly at risk of acquiring infection because any abrasion on skin provided a potential route to virus and bacteria.

The problem was aggravated by absence of vaccination against infectious diseases. They were diagnosed only when blood samples were taken during routine tests.

A laboratory technician said there were not enough protective accessories like surgical gloves or masks, which exposed them to deadly diseases.

Hepatitis C had killed senior surgeons like Prof Dr Rahim Gul, Prof Dr Mumtaz Khattak and Dr Shabana while Prof Dr Tahir Hasan and Dr Afzal Khan are being treated abroad.

A hepatologist said that he was treating about 40 doctors for hepatitis B and C, adding that they had acquired the disease during surgical operations.

Stressing the need for a central sterilisation system at public sector hospitals, doctors said that central sterilisation systems at the city hospitals were being operated by contractors with little or no check.

“There is no system by which surgeons could determine whether the gowns, gloves and equipment they were using was sterilised,” said a surgeon.

Sources at the HMC said that most of sweepers had contracted hepatitis because they handled disposable syringes with their bare hands. They said that the government had installed incinerators for proper disposal of hospital waste at the three teaching hospitals and every one of them had cost Rs3.2 million, but they were partially functional.

A doctor associated with the Prime Minister’s Hepatitis Control Programme said that they were aware of the problem and were collecting data about infected people to treat them. He also said that free hepatitis-B vaccination would be provided to health workers, he added.