MUZAFFARGARH, Feb 25: The outpatient department of the Muzaffargarh district headquarters hospital facilitates the patients for two hours every day as most of the doctors leave their rooms after 11am, Dawn has learnt.

“We arrived at the ward at 11:30am to see gynaecologists Dr Raeesa and Dr Khalida Bukhari and their attendants told us the doctors were on a tea break,” said Jameela and Fakhra, who had come from a village that is 15 kilometres from Muzaffargarh. They said that they joined the long queue of women who were sitting outside the room awaiting their turn. They said that at 12:30 the attendant informed the patients that the doctors had gone to other wards to check admitted patients and would come back by 1:30pm. The women waited till 2:30 but the doctors did not return.

The old woman attendant advised all patients to come tomorrow early in the morning so that they could get turn.

Patients admitted to wards complained that the doctors visited them once a day between 11 am to 1 pm.

They said that they spent nights at God’s mercy and in case of any emergency, nurses on duty would have to handle the situation.

“Only doctor Allah Bukhsh is God-fearing and he comes to the wards regularly when he is on duty,” said a nurse requesting anonymity. She said other doctors had opened their private hospitals where they paid best attention to their patients. The doctors would refer all those patients to the Nishtar Hospital in Multan who demanded more attention, said the nurse.

The admitted patients complained that the hospital did not provide them any medicine free of cost.

A nurse said that higher authorities had asked them to charge the cost of medicines from those patients who could afford it. She said that even though these medicines were not for sale, but she was doing so on the order of the senior officials.

“I don’t want to be in hospital,” said a patient, admitted to TB ward. He said that while in hospital, he was developing other diseases like scabby and skin infection. He said many a time doctors had asked him to leave the hospital because they think the patients were burden on them. “My family pressures me to be in hospital unless I am completely fit,” he said.

Hospital’s wards present unhygienic conditions and whenever it rains, compound and lawns of the hospital are full of rainwater thus a breeding place for mosquitoes.

When the Dawn correspondent visited the emergency ward at 4pm, there was no doctor on duty. A paramedic said that the doctor had gone to the mosque to offer prayer. At 5pm, the doctor came back from the mosque and said that he was a Muslim and could not leave his prayer at any cost.

Talking to Dawn, the health executive district officer admitted that doctors lacked professional attitude towards their jobs.

“If I leave my office now, after 15 minutes all of my subordinates will have gone to their homes,” he said. He said prayer break was legal and doctors did deserve a 15-minute tea break.

District Health Officer Malik Ashiq Hussain said that the hospital was facing the shortage of staff as there was no physician, no cardiologist, no nephrologist and no radiologist.

The lack of a radiologist means that the patients are bound to get their ultrasound done from private laboratories, he said. A dialyses centre set up five years ago could not be operational as no nephrologist was ready to work at the hospital.

He said that they had advertised in newspapers many a time about the vacancy but no doctor was interested in the offer because salaries were low. About tea breaks and absence of doctors, he said that it was usual that whenever the boss was away, all the doctors would vanish.

He said the hospital was facing a shortage of funds, and when the funds were available, the hospital would be upgraded.

He said free medicines were being provided to all deserving patients.