HYDERABAD: Two costly machines were stolen from the old trauma centre run by the department of orthopaedic surgery of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) in the LUH city branch the other day.
A non-cognisable offence report has been lodged with Baldia police station about the theft of the machines, Elisa and micro lab.
Centre’s head Prof Dr Fahim Memon, who was on leave when the theft took place, confirmed that the report had been registered with police. Already equipment installed there, like CT scan and X-ray machines and generator, remained nonfunctional as some of their accessories, including batteries of the generator, remained unavailable.
LUMHS had started its outpatient department of orthopaedic surgery, but it had not yet been able to make the trauma centre fully functional. The centre was established by the district government of Hyderabad headed by district Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil. Handed over to LUMHS in 2019, it had not been made fully functional yet. It was built at a cost of Rs110m.
The trauma centre has a capacity of 30 beds in 12 separate rooms and a common space, which could be used as general ward for critical cases if need be. Trauma centre-related sources said that machinery worth Rs2 million were stolen from time to time and that’s why the centre could not start working. Baldia police have lodged a report for necessary action following the recent theft. No recovery was made so far. The report was lodged reportedly by Dr Najam Fazlani and Dr Tahir Shaikh.
During the first wave of Covid-19, a testing facility was set up there by the district administration. Since the centre did not start working, it was handed over to LUMHS by then Hyderabad commissioner Abbas Baloch. Dr Memon, however, said that an official inventory of machinery was given to the trauma centre management which reflected different machineries’ availability. But, he said, since machinery remained nonfunctional from the day one that’s why the management did not receive them officially.
At a meeting held on Dec 11,2018, and chaired by then commissioner Abbas Baloch, a file containing all details and documents of the machinery, equipment and civil infrastructure of the Trauma Centre was handed over to then LUMHS VC Prof Bikha Ram and dermatology department chairman Prof Dr Daulat Rai Bajaj as the VC wanted to run it as an institute of skin issues. But this idea did not work and then LUMHS decided to operate it as trauma centre.
The centre was handed over to LUMHS on Jan 7, 2019, and Dr Bikha Ram had then claimed that the Sindh government was establishing 15 trauma centres across Sindh and one such centre would be set up in Hyderabad as well.
According to Dr Fahim, the centre needed to be equipped with human resource and there had to be a fully developed space for trauma cases’ handling. “We need postgraduates, anaesthetists, technicians and nursing staff round the clock to run the department effectively,” he told Dawn on Thursday.
He added that the trauma centre now existed under the supervision of LUMHS’s department of orthopaedic surgery. “But it needs to be equipped to deal with trauma cases reported in and around Hyderabad and that’s why we are talking about functionality of the centre with required facilities,” he said.
LUMHS’s noted neurosurgeon Prof Dr Riaz Raja argued that the trauma centres were needed in all major cities given the burden of head injuries’ cases. According to his statistics, six per cent mortality was reported out of 2,800 head injury cases in Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) city branch in 2021. He observed that specialists trained in intensive care unit (ICU) services in addition to anaesthetists were needed for those centres.
Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2023