RAWALPINDI, Oct 25: The administrations of three autonomous hospitals in the city have conducted an evaluation of their respective emergency wards and concluded that there is still a lot of room for improvement, sources said on Friday.

Mentioning the parameters on which the evaluation was conducted, the sources said, these included functioning of systems, patient care, general cleanliness, sterilization, medicine availability, reception performance, operation theatres, linen, signs, waiting space for patients, temperatures, public telephone, assistance by supporting staff, provision of wheel chairs and stretchers, diagnostic facilities and disaster management plan.

They said Rawalpindi General Hospital’s emergency was the worst of all. The state of cleanliness was extremely poor, besides lack of medicines and inadequate arrangement for diagnostics, they said. Above all, they said, the patients’ satisfaction at the hospital was very poor.

During the evaluation of District Headquarters Hospital, the sources said, it was felt that the accessibility of the patients to the hospital was not satisfactory. “In emergencies, vital time is lost due to the blocking of road leading to the hospital,” a member of the evaluation team said.

The sources said the team was of the view that the problem was mostly because of the presence of a cinema next to the hospital gate, the nearby shops and lethargy of traffic police at Fawara Chowk.

“The administration will have to sit with district government and traffic police to find out some solution to traffic jams at Fawara Chowk and at the road leading to the hospital,” a member said.

The team, it has also been learnt, expressed displeasure over the guards posted at the hospital. The team was dissatisfied with their attitude, uniform and handling of the vehicles. “There was a general consensus that the security guards were hardly serving the purpose for which they had been posted there,” one of the members said.

At Holy Family Hospital, the sources said, the two major concerns were the performance of the radiology department and unavailability of water. Besides, the hospital was asked to improve disaster management plan and information system.

The water supply at the emergency ward had been affected following the commissioning of the new wing of the hospital as the water source was insufficient to cater to the increased requirement. Water rationing is being practised at the hospital since the inauguration of the new wards. Operation theatres are the other area where acute water shortage is being felt.

The evaluation team, the sources said, wanted improvement in the X-ray arrangements and provision of ultra-sound facility. Treatment of emergency patients requiring ultra-sound is either deferred or they are referred to private centres during evening and night shifts.

Army authorities, during a similar assessment almost a year ago, had termed the preparations of Rawalpindi’s public hospitals for handling emergency situation as pathetic and had asked the health department to immediately rectify the situation.

The department, while pointing out the shortcomings, had stated that all the hospitals were poorly staffed, over burdened and inadequately equipped.

These hospitals annually attend to almost 2,75,000 patients in emergency wards.