January 07, 2009	Wednesday	Muharram 09, 1430

KARACHI, Jan 6: The Burns Centre of the Civil Hospital Karachi immediately needs at least Rs5 million to complete a 12-bed high dependency unit (HDU).

Sources in the CHK said the centre, which had been functioning as a public-private partnership initiative for the last four years, was in the process of developing a 12-bed HDU to reduce the load of severely burnt patients from its nine-bed intensive-care unit.

The total number of patients admitted to the centre and treated from January 2005 to August 2008 was 1,874, while 2,098 procedures were performed during the same period at the centre having three operation theaters, an ICU and a 24-hour emergency treatment facility. The centre provides free care and treatment to all its admitted patients in addition to attending patients in the outpatient departments meant for new patients or those coming for follow-ups, a source said.

During the last many months the centre has seen an increase in the number of patients burnt in accidents or fires and those injured while discharging their occupational duty, in addition to women who suffered burns in cooking accidents or domestic maltreatments, including acid burning.

Sometimes the management has to face severe pressures due to accident or blast cases, and problems created by attendants or political associates of the patients. So it was felt that besides the ICU beds with ventilators, some extra beds with sophisticated monitors and machines should also be placed next to the ICU, where patients admitted to the ICU showing improvement could be shifted for further follow-ups.

The source said that a sizeable work including the provision of beds and setting up of suction and oxygen points had already been done at an already existing disaster room for the new facility, the HDU. However, equipment estimated to cost about Rs5 million to Rs6 million was needed.

It was learnt that the Sindh government, which is responsible for providing utilities and salaries of a portion of the staff – doctors, nurses and technical staff – coming from the government sector, and was partially bearing the cost of medicines given to patients, had no liability of extending financial support towards the establishment of new facilities.

Dabir-ur-Rehman, the executive director of the centre, said the Friends of Burns Centre, a philanthropic organisation that had been arranging Rs2.5 million per month to meet the salary component of over 100 private medical and managerial staff of the centre and other recurring expenditures, found it difficult to meet all the establishment cost of the HDU from its resources.

“We are looking towards more individual donors and non-governmental organisations for their help in the pursuit of another noble cause,” he said, adding that funds were required for the provision of equipment such as multi-parameter monitors, ventilators, suction machines, syringe pumps, infusion pumps, defibrillators, suction injectors, flow meters and other requirements.

In reply to a question, Mr Rehman said it was because of the shortage of funds that the burns centre was also delaying a project aimed at curing and caring for the neonatal. “We have the space for the proposed unit on our existing premises, but lack resources, including finance, specialist doctors, technical and nursing staff and costly equipment,” he said and added that small children, if rushed to the centre in emergency, were attended to in the emergency section and then sent to the National Institute of Child Health for further critical care and treatment.

He said the number of patients at the centre had increased now as more and more people knew about the CHK burns centre and reported to it from every part of the country. “It is the only standard institution for education and treatment of burns,” he added.