KARACHI, Oct 16: A rift has developed between the administration of the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) and senior doctors over the resumption of work at the hospital’s Gynaecology & Obstetrics Department where services have been suspended for nearly a month in protest against its poor facilities. Despite an official announcement that repairs have been completed and all gynaecological, obstetric and emergency labour services will resume on Wednesday (October 17), doctors say that their basic concerns have not yet been met and that they are unwilling to start work.
The chairman of the board of governors of the CHK and the Lyari General Hospital, Abu Shamim Arif, claimed in this regard that all repairs had been completed and there was no reason for doctors to continue their protest. “We have solved their immediate problems to the best of our ability and there is no reason to continue to deprive patients of the department’s services,” he told Dawn.
Asked about any official notification in this regard, Mr Arif said that the department had not been closed on his orders in the first place. He added that the doctors’ other concerns were “operational” and said that these could be attended to at a later stage, after discussions.
‘Repairs merely cosmetic’
However, the head of the Gynaecology & Obstetrics Department, Dr Ghufrana Umar Memon, said that if the doctors resumed services, the administration would simply ignore their concerns as it had done for the past four years. “The repairs are merely cosmetic and the real problems remain unresolved,” she told Dawn. “We want the administration to address the issues that have affected the quality of service for many years.”
Dr Memon pointed out that considering the increasing number of patients, there is a desperate need to extend the gynaecology services. The rush of patients under normal circumstances can be estimated given that the day after Eid, the hospital received over 40 patients although all gynaecological and obstetric services have been suspended for nearly a month. “Of these, five women needing immediate medical intervention were admitted into the hospital, 10 were sent home after being given medical advice while 28 were referred to other hospitals,” she said. The long-term issues the protesting doctors referred to include that fact that there is only one operating table in the emergency room. According to Dr Memon, arguments have broken out between doctors and patients since only one case may be operated upon at a time. The elective operation theatre facilities are inadequate and in poor shape, and doctors want the immediate provision of alternative arrangements in the new OT complex. They also claim that the elective surgery theatre needs complete renovation and be equipped with modern facilities.
“In order to extend the gynaecological services, the OTs being shifted from the first floor housing the gynaecological department to the new OT complex should be handed over to the gynaecological department,” said Dr Memon. Expressing the hope that an October 18 meeting with the health minister and the vice-chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences would bring positive results, Dr Memon pointed out that “the administration should realise that the beneficiaries of our demands for more space, trained OT staff and better facilities will be the patients, not us.”
