ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza on Wednesday admitted that the public sector hospitals did not have the capacity to provide appropriate services to patients.

He was speaking at a Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services (NHS) meeting which was chaired by Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) legislator Khushbakht Shujat.

The committee was considering a complaint submitted by PPP Senator Baharamand Khan Tangi in the Senate against alleged negligence of doctors Burn Care Centre of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).

In February, Dr Adnan Mehboob, 26, working at Mingora Hospital, suffered burn injuries due to gas leakage blast in his room.

Since there was not a single burn centre in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the patient was initially shifted to burn centre at Wah Cantt and after providing first aid, he was referred to Nescom Hospital. As the hospital did not have bed, the patient was shifted to Pims where he died because of lack of dialysis machine and bed.

Though staff of Pims Burn Centre also refused to take the patient due to unavailability of bed but finally he was admitted.

On the same night, a nephrologist suggested putting the patient on dialysis but the doctor was told that the burn centre did not have a dialysis machine. The staff asked the patient’s family to arrange a portable dialysis machine otherwise patient might not survive.

Though family members tried its best to get a portable machine from the Pims dialysis centre, because the patient could not be shifted there from ICU, the Pims staff refused to give the machine without the permission of head of the department and asked the family to wait till morning.

But the patient, a father of two-year-old daughter, could not survive until the morning.

During the meeting, Senator Tangi said that patient remained in the hospital for four hours, but he was not given any medical treatment.

Independent Senator Dr Asad Ashraf also gave his story of a doctor’s negligence in a hospital in Punjab where he lost his brother. He said despite a number of efforts he failed to get justice.

Dr Mirza said public sector hospitals lacked capacity to provide treatment to huge number of patients.

“There is enormous burden on hospitals, and the government lacked resources to establish hospitals on such a large scale to cater to increasing number of patients,” he said.

He said the government would hold inquiry into the incident and would take action against the negligent staff.

However, a representative of Pims said that the patient was shifted to the hospital six hours after the incident.

“The patient had 85pc burn injuries and staff provided him best possible treatment but he could not survive,” he said.

However, Senator Tangi refused to accept their explanation and said that patient died due to negligence of doctors.

The committee chairperson said it was a matter of embarrassment that such incident took place in the federal capital and directed the ministry to complete the inquiry within a month.

Discussing the plan to upgrade 30 hospitals to treat multi-drug resistant TB, the committee inquired the criteria for selection of the hospitals. The committee was informed that the project was being supported by the Global Fund for TB.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2019