RAWALPINDI: The Punjab government has not allocated funds to repair or replace the faulty lithotripsy machine at the urology department of the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH).

The garrison city’s three government hospitals are running without lithotripsy machines and the kidney patients are forced to visit private hospitals and clinics for their treatment.

The BBH had a lithotripsy machine but it went out of order four years ago. Since then, the hospital administration has been trying to get funds to replace or repair it. More than 200 patients daily visit the hospital’s urology department.

“I visited all the three government hospitals after doctors asked me to remove the stone from the kidney of my mother,” said Mujtaba Hasan, son of a patient at the BBH.

He said private hospitals were asking for Rs15,000 for removing the stone besides the admission fee and other charges. He said under his limited income, he was unable to

afford the treatment of her mother at any private hospital or clinic.

Mohammad Nasir, a patient at the BBH, said the government was not interested in providing facilities at the public sector hospitals forcing the patients to go to private healthcare centres.

He said mostly doctors in the government hospitals run their own private hospitals and convinced patients to visit their facilities to avail of better treatment.

He said when people were already hit hard by rising inflation how they could afford the treatment expenses in private hospitals.

Another patient, Saleem Raja, said he visited the BBH thrice within a month to get information whether or not the machine had been repaired.

He said he would not go to any private hospital as there was a perception that they removed kidneys.

Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab former chairman Dr Mohammad Haroon said the Punjab government had failed to provide necessary equipment to the hospitals.

“The government is only interested in launching projects that can be sued for political mileage. Patients in the garrison city have been left at the mercy of private clinics and hospitals.”

He said there was no MRI machine in any of the three government-run hospitals because some PML-N leaders operated private hospitals in the city and the patients were forced to get the MRI test done from there.

When contacted, BBH Medical Superintendent Dr Asif Qadir Mir said the hospital would get a new lithotripsy machine as the government had decided to release Rs6 million for this purpose.

He said the machine went out of order four years ago and due to some technical issues the government decided to replace the machine instead of repairing the old one. He said the department of urology was providing treatment to the patients.

Published in Dawn, Aug 2nd , 2014