PESHAWAR, March 5: Patients continue to suffer due to shortage of doctors, paramedics and essential quipment at the district headquarters hospital, Karak, which remains incomplete since work on the hospital began one year back.

For Ilamjana, an elderly woman from a remote village in the NWFP’s southern district of Karak, stay at the hospital proved no less than a nightmare.

Her minor grandson, Kashif Kamran, has undergone a major surgery for abdominal pain he suffered two days ahead of Eidul Azha.

Standing near the window at the end of a long corridor on the first floor of the three-storey hospital, Ilamjana, accompanied by another woman, looked tired and careworn.

To her misfortune, there was no other patient, attendant or visitor except for a young patient in the medical ward of the 200-bedded hospital.

When asked whether she had felt any difficulties during the Eid holidays and later, she said, “No, I was only worried about the health of my grandson as I feared that if his condition deteriorated, there would be nobody available to look after him.

She said there was no facility at the hospital and that doctors and paramedcial staff had remained absent during the Eid holidays.

The few medical stores outside the hospital were closed during the holiday. There is no food outlet in the one-kilometre radius of the hospital.

“You can imagine what problems we must have faced when the entire hospital was left to us,” the old woman said, adding that “it is not that all the diseases have been wiped out with a magic wand, but that the locals know that they would suffer from their ailments for shortage of doctors, paramedics and necessary equipment if they take any patient to the hospital.”

Work on the hospital building, whose construction is still underway, was inaugurated by the incumbent governor one year back.

The much-needed hospital, which has cost millions of rupees to the public exchequer so far, remains incomplete and speaks volumes of red tape and political expediency.