PESHAWAR, Aug 8: Shortage of staff, equipment and space is hampering treatment of newborn babies at the Special Care Baby Unit at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, it is learnt.

The 20-cot unit, the first-ever in the province, was set up in 1976 to provide tertiary care treatment to the seriously ill children aged below one month and coming in from across the province.

However, its efficiency gradually declined due to shortage of doctors and nurses, unavailability of proper space and presence of old equipment.

According to pediatricians, 54 in 1,000 children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and adjoining tribal areas die in the first month of their birth and reducing the number to 40 by 2015 in line with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals will not be possible in light of the available facilities.

Infants in critical condition are at the receiving end of the situation as 30-bedded children ward in Lady Reading Hospital and 20-bedded children ward in Hayatabad Medical Complex don’t have the facilities to treat them. For that reason, most of such children are referred to KTH by pediatricians in the province.

Some private hospitals have wards for seriously ill infants but their costly treatment keeps most parents away.

Also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, doctors refer such unwell infants, especially those wanting neonatal ventilation, to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad as there exists no ventilator in the province.

The KTH Special Care Baby Unit is managed by four trainee medical officers, five staff nurses, one registrar and one assistant professor.

Every doctor and nurse has to perform 24 hours duty in the unit as patients need complete attention.

Due to space shortage, doctors adjust two children on one cot and at some times, the number is even three.

According to World Health Organisation, there should be some space among cots at such facilities to protect infants against infections.

However, cots at KTH Special Care Baby Unit are placed so close to each other that the children admitted are vulnerable to infections.

On average, the unit admits 350 children a month and therefore, the number of cots needs to be doubled.

In 2010, 3,824 children were admitted to the unit but 425 of them couldn’t survive, while in 2011, the unit admitted 3,874 infants and 501 of them died.

Pediatricians insist majority of such deaths could have been avoided had there been modern equipment and sufficient staff on the premises.

According to them, the major reasons for a higher number of admissions to such units are premature births, and the newborns’ low weight and malnutrition.

They told Dawn that around 30 per cent of infants were admitted to hospitals due to low weight, 39.5 per cent due to malnourishment, 25 per cent due to premature delivery and the rest due to jaundice and other infections.

Pediatricians also said majority of pregnant women failed to undergo regular antenatal checkups which resulted in birth and other complications.

A doctor said incubators and warmers purchased at the time of the KTH baby unit’s establishment was still in use.

When contacted, former chief of the KTH child health department Professor Abdul Hameed said the management renovated the unit in 1995 but four ventilators and other equipment installed there either fell into disuse or broke down.

He said priority should be given to child health because children couldn’t speak for their rights.

“It is the responsibility of the government to ensure by all means that children get the due right of treatment in line with several conventions on child rights to which Pakistan is a signatory,” he said.