KOHAT: Four babies have died in the Women and Children Hospital here this month because of the non-operational nursery and shortage of staff, official sources told this correspondent on condition of anonymity on Sunday.

The sources said that the nursery had been established at the hospital with all necessary equipment six months ago, but due to lack of trained staff it could not be made operational. They said that the babies, who were born prematurely, required extreme care that could not be provided to them.

The Kohat district has been receiving millions of rupees oil and gas royalty every year for improvement of health care, education and roads, but the elected representatives are spending such funds on petty works like pavement of streets, installation of hand pumps, etc in their constituencies.

The condition of the KDA Divisional Headquarters Hospital and the Women and Children Hospital is deplorable though one MPA Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi is the provincial minister for law, MPA Amjid Afridi is adviser to the chief minister, and Ziaullah Bangash is chairman of the district development advisory committee, which identifies and sanctions funds for schemes.

Sources said that the provincial health department had tried to transfer senior doctors to Kohat hospitals from Peshawar, but they refused to come to the district by relinquishing their well-established clinics.

Besides, the two government and three private hospitals in the city have no CT scan facility and orthopaedic surgeon and the people injured in road accidents are to be rushed to Peshawar. In some cases, the patients with minor injuries even die on way to the Peshawar hospital.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2014