ISLAMABAD: As many as 5,560 patients died at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) from July 2014 to June 2015 - at least 15 deaths every day.

This figure included 1,558 deaths at the Children Hospital of Pims - 132 deaths of children each month and four every day.

According to documents available with Dawn, during the period 1.04 million patients visited the Pims Outpatient Department (OPD).

The hospital admitted 61,483 patients and over 27,000 patients were operated upon. During the treatment, 5,560 patients died and the rest were discharged after receiving the required medication.

During the period, 246,906 patients came to the OPD of Children Hospital and the administration admitted 16,877 of them. There were 190 deaths of newborn babies and mothers during the period.

During 2014-2015, 178 patients died at the Burn Centre and over 300 in gastroenterology department of Pims.

Though the Pims administration blamed shortage of doctors, lack of required technology and insufficient resources for the alarming number of causalities, insiders insisted that improper monitoring of the ‘white coats’ contributed to the increased number of deaths.

A senior doctor on the condition of anonymity told Dawn that an overwhelming majority of senior doctors, some of them occupying administrative posts, ran their own private clinics.

He said these doctors were more interested in running their own business and for that reason they compromised on their professional duty to give more time to their clients at the clinics.

He claimed that senior doctors never visited the wards in the evening and afternoon, rather assigned the job to trainee doctors, who too hardly paid attention to their duty.

In majority of the deaths, the administration never conducted even an inquiry to ascertain the cause of the death, he said. Pims vice-chancellor Professor Javed Akram, when contacted, said there was a deficiency of over 600 doctors in Pims for the last many years as the doctors could not be recruited since last five years due to a ban on government jobs.

He said the government had now lifted the ban and Pims was in the process of appointing 655 doctors in the near future. The government had issued NOC for hiring of doctors in Pims last year but due to red tape it took 18 months for Pims to start the recruitment process.

According to him, Pims was a huge health institution comprising five hospitals where thousands of patients came daily, including those who were in critical and irreversible conditions. He said victims of terrorism, natural disasters and accidents were also brought to Pims and sometimes they could not survive.

Professor Akram said the administration had initiated inquiries against some doctors for committing negligence and also terminated them from their services but they (dismissed doctors) went into litigation and obtained stay orders against their termination and the hospital administration had to restore their services.

He, however, said the death ratio in Pims was within the internationally accepted limit.

A senior officer at Pims administration said after the devolution of health ministry under the 18th Amendment, the provinces were given the funds, doctors and facilities and Pims was supposed to serve the residents of Islamabad only. He, however, said patients from other provinces also came to Pims for medical treatment and the hospital administration cannot refuse them.

He said there was a need to educate the patients as well as upgrade the health facilities in the remote areas so the burden on Pims could be reduced.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2015