KOHAT: Though KDA teaching hospital is the main health facility of Kohat division that also caters to the patients of other southern districts, it has no burns facility and trauma centre. Similarly, a small facility like ultrasound was not available in the night shift at the emergency.

The hospital was inaugurated as category ‘A’ facility by then governor retired Lt-Gen Iftikhar Hussain Shah in 2000, but it was still short of 70 doctors. The hospital has received stretchers and beds for trauma centre and wards a couple of days ago which are without foams. As there has been no required extension in the hospital since long the stretchers have been placed in the galleries. MRI and CT scan facilities are also not available in the hospital and patients are referred to a nearby private hospital.

An official Rashid Bokhari told this correspondent on Sunday that the hospital was being placed in categories ‘B’ and ‘C’ since 2000 and now informally it was a category ‘A’ facility, but it would take time to get the required number of staff and machinery.

Inaugurated in 2000 as category ‘A’ hospital it is still short of 70 doctors

He said that a neurosurgeon had been transferred to Kohat from Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, more than a year ago, but due to lack of facilities not a single operation could be carried out. He said that trauma centre would be complete when all the neurosurgeon, orthopaedic surgeon and separate general surgeon were appointed and machinery made available.

Two years have passed to the visit of the special committee of provincial assembly to the women and children hospital, the city’s other major hospital, following complaints, but its reconstruction still remains a dream.

The redressal committee headed by MPA Shah Hussain and comprised of a representative of law department, health department and KP Assembly was constituted when the issue was raised in the assembly in 2016, MPA Najma Shaheen told this scribe. The committee acquainted itself of all the issues faced by the hospital, but no action was taken as yet.

The hospital is still without trained dispensers and well-equipped ambulance for shifting of serious patients to the KDA Teaching Hospital or to Peshawar.

The committee had recommended reconstruction of the hospital and taken up the issue with the provincial health department, but the reconstruction work could not been started.

KITCHEN GARDENING: The district government and agriculture department, Hangu, have started training of girls in kitchen gardening and preservation of food and vegetables.

An official statement said here on Sunday that the training sessions had started in Government Girls Degree Colleges and girls high school in Hangu and Thall tehsil.

It said that the training would continue in the next week. It said that during the training the girls would also learn how to save water while using kitchen water for gardening.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2018