ISLAMABAD: State Minister for the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Usman Ibrahim on Thursday admitted that patients have been facing numerous problems at hospitals in the federal capital. He attributed this to a lack of funds available to the hospitals.

Mr Ibrahim said that the load on hospitals has increased many fold due to an increase in the population of Islamabad as well as increased number of referrals from Azad Jammu Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and upper Punjab.

“Annually 8262 surgeries are performed in Polyclinic and 26269 surgeries are performed in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims),” he said.

The minister said that even with the available equipments and human resources, the Federally Administered Hospitals i.e. Pims, Polyclinic and National Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine (NIRM) are making maximum efforts to provide free treatment.

He said that the government has looked at the data on patients visiting these hospitals for surgery.

“Almost 250 patients visit surgical Outpatient Departments (OPD) every day and over 100 surgeries are carried out at emergency departments,” he said.

The minister said that although Polyclinic provides services to 2.5-3 million patients annually, heart and neurological surgery is not available in this hospital.

Mr Ibrahim said that there is dire need to enhance the capacity of these hospitals and increase human resources available to provide better care. “PIMS cannot be expanded as it was designed for ground plus one and NESPAK did not approve construction of additional floors,” he said.

However the minister said that accusation of 2.54 acres for extension of Polyclinic and NIRM is in process.

“The ban on fresh recruitment has been lifted and it is hoped that human resource deficiency will be overcome very soon,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2014