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CHAKWAL: The district headquarters hospital here witnessed a night of unbearable pain and agony on Monday as it received the dead and injured from the fatal bus accident in the Salt Range area of Kallar Kahar.
As the tragic news was telecast by TV channels, parents and relatives of the ill-fated students and teachers rushed to the Chakwal District Headquarters Hospital. The people of Chakwal also thronged the hospital to offer blood donations and help the victims and their relatives in anyway possible.
The distraught relatives, most of them crying and weeping, were seen desperately trying to identify their loved ones among the dead and the injured students.
However, the injured students were not handed over to their parents and relatives immediately and were told instead that they could not leave the hospital unless the chief minister and the home minister visited the facility. “They are not handing over our children to us despite the fact that some of them received minor injuries,” one Mohammad Riaz with tears in his eyes told this correspondent.
“The chief minister of Punjab will visit the hospital at 7:30am,” District Information Officer Abid Salimi told reporters present at the hospital.
Rawalpindi Division Commissioner Zahid Saeed, Regional Police Officer Zubair Hashmi, District Coordination Officer Ahmad Aziz Tarar and District Police Officer Syed Ali Mohsin were on high alert as they had been told that Shahbaz Sharif and Law Minister Rana Sanaullah would soon visit the hospital.
District Information Officer Abid Salimi told journalists of Chakwal that Rana Sanaullah was on way to Chakwal and he would reach at 2am, but neither the law minister nor the chief minister came.
A doctor told Dawn on condition of anonymity that the injured had been detained at the hospital till the arrival of the chief minister and law minister.
Informed sources told Dawn that at 5:30am all officers concerned came to know that the CM’s visit had been cancelled and after that the injured were allowed to be taken to Faisalabad.
The only government leader who visited the hospital was Provincial Food Minister Abdul Ghafoor. Executive District Officer Dr Nasir Mehmood, however, claimed that no injured had been stopped from leaving the hospital.
“All the injured were sent to their native areas before morning and those who got critically injured were referred to Rawalpindi,” he asserted.
Several accidents have taken place at the Kallar Kahar area over the past 14 years, leaving several people dead because the Motorway had some deadly curves and blind turns at the place which according to experts should be removed to stop such accidents in future.
Besides, there was no trauma centre or medical facility nearby, which turns even a minor accident into a fatal one because most of the accident victims expire before reaching any nearby hospital.
“Such curves and blind turns should have been removed and a straight highway should have been constructed as Motorways are always straight,” Deputy Superintendent of Motorway Police Fazal Mehmood Haidri said.
He said that several letters had been written to higher authorities concerned to remove these blind turns or deadly turns, but in vain.
Most people injured in accidents at Salt Range area and on other roads district could not get timely treatment because there is no trauma centre in the area.
Tehsil Kallar Kahar is even deprived of Tehsil Headquarters Hospital and of those getting injured at the place are taken to District Headquarters Hospital which does not have a single neurosurgeon.
The hospital, therefore, does not admit accident victims having head injuries and such victims are referred to Rawalpindi, which is some 120km away from Chakwal, and most of the victims expire before reaching there.
“Most of injured succumbed to their injuries on way to Rawalpindi as they could not get timely treatment in Chakwal,” Chakwal District Health Officer Dr Aleem Danish admitted.
The accident also brought to light lack coordination among rescue agencies who got confused over shifting the injured and the dead to hospitals.
“We faced a lot of problems because there was no proper coordination among Frontier Works Organisation, Police and Rescue 1122,” Mr Kamran Rasheed, the District In-charge of Rescue 1122, told Dawn.
DSP Motorway Police Fazal Mahmood Haidri said that all rescue machinery should be given to the Motorway Police as they were the first to act in such situations.
“We are on the road. That’s why all the machinery such as ambulances, cranes and other equipment should be given to us to cope with any emergency,” he said.
