PESHAWAR, Dec 6: The neo-natal intensive care unit in the Khyber Teaching Hospital has been closed because of lack of staff, health officials have said. The unit was established in 1997. It was the only ward, a doctor said, to take care of infants brought to the hospital from different areas of the province.

"The ward has almost been closed because of lack of staff," sources in the hospital said. The infrastructure still existed but it was impossible to keep the ward open, they said.

The ward's registrar had been given a long leave, an official said. "For a month there has been no doctor at the unit and critically-ill patients are admitted to general wards," said the sources.

They alleged that the registrar had been refused leave by the hospital administration but he got it approved by the health minister. State-of-the-art equipment worth Rs7.7million were installed to provide treatment to infants below the age of a month.

"About 200 infants were admitted to the unit annually," the sources said. At the time of the launching of the unit, three paediatric intensive care unit, a nutritional rehabilitation centre and an infectious diseases unit were also commissioned. But the paediatrics unit is yet to be set up and the other two are being run by the routine staff.

"The neo-natal unit needed permanent staff round the clock. At least one doctor is required to be present at the ward," sources said. He said that for several months there had been one doctor in the ward in the morning shift, while the evening and night shifts were covered by doctors from the children's wards. But the doctor who ran the ward had left, he said.

According to the hospital administration it had sent several requests since the unit's establishment to the health secretary and other officials to assign permanent staff, but no response was received.

The sources said patients were charged Rs400 a day at the unit. The patients paid Rs10,000 in the hospitals of Karachi and Islamabad, apart from expenses on travelling and staying there, they said.

The unit also collected donations from charity and non-government organisations and Zakat, but the main support came from the staff, especially doctors and nurses, they said.

According to the World Health Organization's guidelines one doctor is required for two patients in such units. A doctor served six patients at the unit in the Khyber Hospital but now there was no doctor, they said. The sources said the hospital administration had sent a letter to the health secretary last month, requesting him to save the ward from closure, but no action was taken.