PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to expand Burn and Plastic Surgery Centre in Dera Ismail Khan to cope with trauma incidents in the region.

The director of Burn and Plastic Surgery Centre Peshawar, Prof Tahmeedullah, told Dawn that Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur recently chaired a meeting regarding the expansion of burn services in his hometown Dera Ismail Khan as the existing 14-bed facility established two years ago was not suffice to cope with the flow of patients.

“The chief minister has directed officials concerned to start preparation of PC-I. Experts of communication and works department have visited our centre to make sure that the new building in Dera Ismail Khan is purpose-built. There are two parts of PC-I, one is procurement of equipment and machinery and the other is construction of the building,” he said.

Prof Tahmeed said that two plastic surgeons were already working there. “We will need two or three more surgeons along with other staff to put in place trauma and plastic surgery services there. The new staffers will be given six-month training in Peshawar to scale up their capacity to tackle all cases locally. Presently serious cases with more than 30 per cent burns are being referred to Peshawar,” he added.

CM directs officials concerned to prepare PC-I of the project

He said that burn patients needed to be rushed specialised treatment centre immediately but absence of state-of-the-art centres at district level caused problems and victims ended up with complication even if they survived.

He added that the 140-bed sole centre of the province in Peshawar remained full to the capacity throughout the year as patients continued to visit it.

Prof Tahmeed said that Prof Naseem Saba Mehsud, a gynaecologist and dean of Mahmood Teaching Hospital and Gomal Medical College, was playing vital role in upgradation of burn services in Dera Ismail Khan. She has already established cardiac and orthopaedic wards due to which people receive treatment services in their native area.

He said that the expansion process would cost about Rs3 billion that would also witness setting up of micro-vascular centre there. He added that the current burn unit was established with the efforts of Ali Amin Gandapur when he was a federal minister but it was too small to cater to the needs of patients.

“It receives patients from all the adjacent areas including merged districts as well as from far off places such as Zhob in Balochistan,” he said.

Dr Tahmeed, who has been asked by CM to look after the expansion programme, said that he wanted to convince the government to pay attention to other districts as far as establishment of burn centres was concerned.

“We have a centre in Swabi that is run by a specialist doctor and patients with less burn injuries are treated there. In Mardan and Nowshera, there is no facility for burn patients,” he said.

As per plan, the centre will be 50-bed including five-bed intensive care unit. Small centres have also been established with the assistance of Germany in Dir, Matta and Bannu that also require expansion so that people get proper services locally and patients’ load is reduced on Peshawar.

“We have informed the government regarding requirements of patients and have proposed expansion of services,” he said.

Prof Tahmeed said that an estimated 1.5 million people suffered burn injuries countrywide annually with 10 per cent of them happened to be life-threatening requiring hospitalisation and about 15 to 20 per cent victims got crippled and underwent multiple surgeries and prolonged rehabilitation.

He said that 70 per cent of them were in most productive age group of 15 to 40 years while 80 per cent belonged to poor socioeconomic strata, mainly due to illiteracy, poverty and low level safety consciousness.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2024