PESHAWAR: Haphazard and ill-planned addition of new wards at the Lady Reading Hospital is causing more problems for the patients rather than resolve them.

The government has been arguing all along that the new wards are meant to benefit patients especially in wards which have fewer beds than patients. However, relevant officials claim that addition of new wards have only benefited the doctors by way of promotion to the posts of professors, associated and assistant professors and senior registrars. They said that the number of beds in the upgraded wards remained the same.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has established at least eight new wards at the LRH in the last five years, which have squeezed the existing facilities, said the officials, adding that orthopaedic and neurosurgery wards were split, but the purpose of accommodating more patients didn’t get served.

Similarly, the officials said urology, surgical, male and female medical wards were also split, but they failed to serve the targeted purpose.

Officials said that each new unit cost approximately Rs1 million in terms of payment of salaries to consultants, medical officers, nurses and paramedics. Besides, there was no need assessment survey carried out to find what was required for patients’ benefit, they said.

The establishment of new wards and facilities should have taken place on the basis of statistics from the hospital, they said and added that the hospital’s administration not only lacked annual statistics regarding patients but failed to carry out clinical audit and service evaluation of the staff.

Instead of establishing new wards at the LRH and other teaching hospitals in Peshawar, the government should establish and improve standard of hospitals in other districts at par with those of the provincial capital. Thus patients from other districts will not seek treatment in Peshawar and will be able to be seen by specialists in their own districts, according to health experts.

Presently, the LRH has 1,600-bed strength, which used to be 1,800 beds before the medical, dermatology and urology wards were demolished to start work on the new multi-storey medical block in 2012 to be completed by 2018. Officials say that even when the medical block is completed and approximately 400 more beds are added to LRH, the already present medical B, C, D wards, nephrology and pulmonology wards will likely be demolished.

Therefore, there will be no increase in bed strength and total number will remain at 1,800.Meanwhile, senior consultants told Dawn that the provincial government would take notice of the ill-planned establishment of wards to ensure that public money wasn’t wasted on individuals.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2014