SWABI, Feb 27: All the hospitals and Basic Health Units of the district lack adequate health facilities and most of the equipment for diagnosis purpose are out of order, causing hardships to the patients.

This was stated by district Nazim Sher Zaman Sher and Naib Nazim Mohammad Jamil while briefing journalists about the conditions prevailing in the district hospitals here on Wednesday.

Sher Zaman said the most worrisome aspect of the situation was the poor management and inadequate health facilities.

He said lives of thousands of people, especially the emergency patients could not be saved due to poor conditions of emergency departments at all hospitals.

“Vital machines are out of order while the essential life-saving medicines are not available either. Patients have no choice but to purchase the medicines from market. According to rules there should be some life-saving medicines in the hospitals,” he added.

The Nazim said all patients whose condition was serious were either referred to Lady Reading Hospital or Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar, but most of them died before reaching these hospitals because they could not get proper first-aid in the local hospitals.

He said local hospitals had the space but they lacked proper equipments to diagnose the disease.

Moreover, the standard of service was also very poor, shortage of staff was also one of the problems which forced the patients to get their treatment at private hospitals.

While those who did not have resources to meet the expenses of private clinics were left to face the hardships.

The Nazim said that there was not a single blood bank in any of the hospitals in Swabi and in case anybody needed blood transfusion in emergency, the patient had to approach the private blood bank.

But these private blood banks too did not offer service at night.

He called for the establishment of a blood bank in the district headquarter hospital to save precious lives, saying it was the responsibility of the government to provide adequate health facilities to all citizens but due to lack of fund this dream could not be materialised in near future.

However, he said, the construction of district hospital complex had already been expedited and with its completion the rush on the district hospital would be reduced to a considerable extent.