HYDERABAD, May 25: The Coronary Care Unit (CCU) of the Hyderabad Civil Hospital does not have adequate facilities to provide emergency treatment to cardiac patients, information collected by this correspondent revealed.

Apparently, the hospital administration has turned a blind eye to problems of the CCU which is the most important unit of the hospital. It is the only CCU working in the public sector but it has no development funds.

Sources in the hospital believe that such conditions have been created by a lobby of professors who wanted to enable the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) to take over the civil hospital, which is under the control of the Sindh health department.

Out of 80 to 90 heart patients who turn up at the 14-bedded CCU every day, 8-10 are admitted because of absence of emergency treatment. The patients have to purchase an injection, costing Rs5,000, from private medical stores

Two Exercise Tolerance Test (ETT) machines and two machines of Echo Cardiogram are lying out of order and patients have to get the tests conducted at private laboratories.

When the Echo machines were operational, no fee was charged from patients but now they have to pay Rs1,000 to 1,500 for their tests at private clinics. ETT’s charges in the CCU were Rs200 but patients pay Rs500 in private laboratories. The CCU also has no arrangements for X-Ray.

A source told this correspondent that most of the private clinics where the tests were conducted belonged to CCU consultants.

A visit to the CCU by this correspondent showed that air- conditioners of the unit were not functioning which caused suffocation to patients during night and their condition remained unstable.

The emergency room, which was earlier working in the CCU building, is now working outside the building, leading to inconvenience to patients who are brought from the hospital’s casualty on pushcart-like stretchers.

Bedside monitors, including those of the Intensive Care Unit of the CCU, have also developed faults.

The general ward of the civil hospital is located on the first floor of the urology ward building which expose patients to danger given the nature of their disease as the building’s elevator is not functional. Sufficient water can also not be supplied to the ward due to damaged lines.

The shortage of nursing staff is another problem confronting the hospital. One nurse is supposed to look after three patients. But nurses do not turn up for their duties despite repeated calls by doctors.

Talking to this correspondent, the adviser to the Sindh chief minister on health, Nauman Saigal, clarified that the Hyderabad Civil Hospital was under the control of the health department.

He said he was making inquiries into complaints of irregularities and would make efforts to provide adequate facilities at the hospital.

Prof Nazir Ahmad Memon, chairman, LUMHS’s department of cardiology and a consultant at the civil hospital, was also contacted for his viewpoint.

According to him, the CCU was working without any in charge and that he had volunteered his services for the purpose.

He said he had to get equipment of the CCU repaired from his own resources and the hospital administration did not pay attention to his requests for the betterment of the unit.

He said the hospital administration had to provide drugs, funds and other facilities at the unit.

Prof Memon said Rs3.5 million had been allocated for Echo Cardiogram and ETT machines by the LUMHS syndicate. He said one of the ETTs machines had started working.

Some doctors of the hospital hinted at a systematic campaign by a lobby of professors so that the LUMHS could take over the civil hospital. That was why the civil hospital was being constantly mentioned and written as the Liaquat University Hospital.

The medical superintendent of the hospital, Sharaffuddin Baloch, said CCU doctors had given him requisitions about equipment that had been sent to the health department.

He said power fluctuation affected the working of air-conditioners at the unit the shortage of nurses was due to their ongoing examinations.