LARKANA: A host of machines mandatory to undertake eye surgeries at the Chandka Medical College (CMC) Teaching Hospital’s department of ophthalmology are lying idle for years, causing great hardship to the patients visiting the health facility with eye ailments.

An insider on the condition of anonymity told this reporter that currently A Scan (biometry), B Scan (ultrasound of the eye), surgical microscope, phacoemulsification machine and other instruments had developed defects. The phaco machine is used to carry out cataract surgeries, but both machines were out of order and the surgeries were performed manually, the sources said.

All the instruments had been out of order for at least two years, the sources said. The 60-bedded department of ophthalmology caters to the needs of upper Sindh, parts of Balochistan and Punjab and is linked with the CMC Teaching Hospital; it daily receive 400 to 500 patients with various eye-related problems at the outpatient department. “But we don’t have updated facilities in this modern world; we are applying 25-year-old manual techniques to perform eye surgery because the phacoemulsification machine is out of order,” a doctor privy to the conditions in the hospital said.

A machine called biometry needed a minor repair and for this the hospital management had arranged a private person to bring in a machine for carrying out tests. He charges Rs200 per case which the former medical superintendent (MS) had promised to pay, the sources said. The day the practice exhausted him [the private person], he stopped bringing the machine to the hospital where the end sufferers would be the patients coming from far-flung areas. A senior member of the teaching faculty told Dawn that the department had time and again approached the CMCH for updating the machines, but in vain.

The former MS advised the ophthalmology unit to spend from pocket and submit bill for payments, the sources said. But whenever the bills were submitted to the hospital management, it applied delaying tactics.

Recently ophthalmology department head Prof Dr Partab Rai met new CMCH medical superintendent Dr Irshad Kazmi and apprised him about the situation. He promised to resolve the issues, the professor said. This correspondent tried to meet two officials of the planning and accounts wings to know about the situation, but they were on leave.

It was learnt on good authority that the eye department of the CMCH had got A Scan and B Scan machines in the tenure of Benazir Bhutto and General Parvaiz Musharraf respectively. When sources in the biomedical engineering department at the CMCH were contacted, they admitted that the hospital had not received new machines after 2012. The faulty machines at the eye department were in dire need of replacement as the repair would cost a huge amount.

The department concerned had moved the MS for providing new machines and the hospital managers had raised the issue with the health department, the sources said. It was learnt that on Dec 13, 2019, the eye department requested the Sindh health minister for issuing the phaco emulsification machine that had been purchased, but in vain. The delay continues to multiply the problems of eye patients.

Recently two slit lamps out of six were repaired of the A Scan (biometry), but the hospital had withheld the payment to the company concerned, the sources said. The companies that had repaired the machines have been insisting that outstanding dues be cleared.

Currently the department had hired services of 10 private persons to run the unit as they had been paid privately. The operation theatres were incomplete, said Prof Partab.

The technical wing of the hospital said that machines were old and they should be replaced instead of injecting a huge amount of funds to get them repaired. An insider in the department, expressing concern over the difficulties the staff and patients encounter, wants repair of the faulty machines along with deputing the required staff on war footing for smooth running of the department.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2020