LAHORE: The management of Jinnah Hospital’s teaching institute has shown utter disregard for security of high-tech medical equipment worth over millions of rupees besides delaying making the only cardiac surgery unit of the institute fully functional.

The matter was investigated by a PML-N government team, including representatives of the health department, who made grave observations in a report, but to no avail.

The team revealed that expensive and sensitive medical equipments at the cardiac surgery unit were stored outside the hospital with no proper care.

Report says sensitive, expensive machinery lying unused outside store

An official privy to the information told Dawn that the previous Punjab government had launched a mega scheme according to which cardiac surgery units of all teaching hospitals were to be made fully functional to share burden of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology. He said upgrade of the Jinnah Hospital’s cardiac unit was also part of the programme with around Rs200 million and the PC-I for the project had been prepared in financial year 2015-16.

According to the official report available with Dawn, Jinnah’s cardiac unit was supposed to offer a range of facilities such as bypass surgeries (both conventional and beating heart), treat complex vascular heart diseases and congenital defects of heart. This project was to enable the unit to operate almost 400 to 500 cases annually by reducing the number of patients waiting at bigger institutions.

The project, however, failed to meet even its second deadline of completion of Aug 20 despite a delay of two years.

The report states that only six equipments (out of 19) were functional and main component of the project -- establishment of modular operation theatres -- was not complete yet. Two modular operation theatres were supposed to be functional by June 30, 2017, which was the first deadline.

Due to pending work on the theatres, only two of the 13 machines procured for the cardiac surgery department were found functional.

About the hospital admin, the report stated: “The main equipment store of the Jinnah Hospital Lahore has limited space, therefore, some expensive equipment such as anaesthesia work station, cardiac surgery operation theatre table, echocardiography machine etc were placed outside the store, exposing them to harsh environmental conditions.”

Around 65 new posts were proposed for the upgrade of cardiology and cardiac surgery department. But the staff could not be hired due to non-approval of Schedule of New Expenditure, and the finance department asked the hospital to apply for supplementary grant in July. The report further states that out of the total project cost of around Rs200 million, Rs95 million had been released in 2015-16 and Rs104m 2016-17.

About the inefficiency of the institute’s management, the report states that many equipments were not installed, including the sophisticated echocardiography machine, intra-aortic balloon pump, diathermy machine, electric sternum saw, heart lung machine with hypothermia, cardiac surgery instruments, ICU motorized beds.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2018