LAHORE: The shocking treatment of a two-year-old burnt girl from Okara has exposed the state of healthcare in Lahore where no government hospital has a paediatric burn centre.

The information has been gleaned by Dawn a day after two-year-old Aliza was denied treatment by three major state-run teaching hospitals of the city when she was brought from Okara on Monday night with 35pc burns.

The 2,400-bed Mayo Hospital, the largest teaching institute of Punjab, 1,500-bed Jinnah Hospital and 1,100-bed Children’s Hospital denied admission to the minor girl who suffered burns after boiling water fell on her and was brought all the way from Okara in excruciating pain.

This reporter spoke to the heads of the teaching institutes and they revealed that the government hospitals they were managing had no dedicated burn centre for children. Lahore has 10 government teaching health facilities including Mayo, Services, General, Jinnah and Children’s hospitals. Only Jinnah and Mayo hospitals have ‘burn centres for adults’.

In case of any emergency, these health facilities have directed the paediatric surgery units to treat children but the heads of these facilities allegedly show reluctance to attend to the children visiting there with multiple burns. It is alleged that most doctors at the burn centres make a fast buck through cosmetic surgeries — a specialty which has flourished in the public and private sectors — and consider the minor patients with multiple burns a ‘burden’.

In most cases, they refer them to other hospitals as is evident from the case of two-year-old Aliza.

Meanwhile, some officials and senior doctors have suggested to the Punjab government to initiate a third-party audit of the burn centres.

Burns & Reconstructive Surgery Centre at Jinnah Hospital

The 78-bed dedicated burn centre for the adults does not admit minor patients brought there with life-threatening burns.

“We have been directed by the Punjab health department not to entertain the paediatric burn cases under a policy devised by the government,” Prof Dr Kamran Khalid claimed.

Speaking to Dawn, he said the infant who was brought with critical burns at the Jinnah Hospital on Monday night might have been denied admission on the same grounds. He claimed that it was the responsibility of the Mayo Hospital to admit her when she was first taken there by her father.

“The Mayo Hospital has the largest set-up of paediatric surgery,” he said, adding that the Jinnah Hospital’s Burns & Reconstructive Surgery Centre had nothing to do with the treatment of the minor children having burns. Since the Centre has no designated facilities for the children, it would be a risk to their lives to admit them in the absence of required trained human resources and other logistics,“ Prof Khalid said.

He said the Childrens’s Hospital was recently upgraded as the university and the University of Child Health head should take up the responsibility of establishing a paediatric burn centre.

University of Child Health

Prof Masood Sadiq, who looks after the matters of the university, said his institute lacked the critical facility of paediatric burns treatment.

“I have issued standing instructions to the institute not to refuse any ailing kid, even those coming with burns,” he said. He said the matter of denying admission or treatment to Aliza was not in his knowledge.

He said the Punjab government had released funds for the construction of a new paediatric burn centre at the University of Child Health. “The 30-bed centre is likely to be completed in June next year,” he said, adding that the civil work was near completion and the process of provision of human resource and medical equipment was under way.

Mayo Hospital

Medical Superintendent Dr Munir Ahmad said the hospital had over 40-bed largest burn centre of the province, which was dedicated for the adult patients. However, under some arrangements, the paediatric surgery unit of the health facility attended the children with multiple burns.

He said that denying treatment or admission to any patient was against the norms, principles and fundamental rights and this practice would not be acceptable at any cost.

Dr Ahmad regretted that Aliza was denied admission by the Mayo Hospital and her case had necessitated the need to review the standard operating procedures (SOPs) to discourage such unhealthy practice in future.

“Now she is fine and under treatment of best available doctors at the Mayo Hospital,” he said. He said the hospital would take measures to allocate designated beds for the paediatric burn cases.

“We have the largest healthcare set-up of paediatric surgery, a facility that would help treat the children coming with burns and other complications,” Dr Munir said.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2022