HYDERABAD, July 11: Frequent power breakdowns, hours long load-shedding and lack of an alternative power supply line for the Hyderabad Civil Hospital are posing serious risk to patients who depend on life-support machines for their survival.
The hospital has two generators, which are used only only for lights and to run some low voltage laboratory machines. They cannot run air-conditioners and heavy machines, hospital sources said on Tuesday.
The hospital is located in Hesco’s Hirabad sub-division which has excessive load thanks to unauthorised connections. “Power went off at 5 pm on June 26 and was restored at 10.30 pm. On June 12 the outage occurred at 10.30 am and power returned at 1 pm,” said an electrician at the hospital.
He said that the hospital’s generators could not run air-conditioners in operation theatres as they could only turn on lights and some soft machines installed in pathology laboratory.
Doctors said that power shutdown for longer period had very harmful repercussions for patients admitted to intensive care unit (ICU), cardiac and burns wards.
“In case the patients at the burns ward have more than 50 per cent burns injuries, they need a germ-free environment for their very survival. When load is shifted to generators they can not run the ward’s air conditioners and patients complain of feeling burning pain in their wounds,” said a doctor at the burns ward.
Hesco is delaying providing an alternate power supply line to the hospital for which the administration has already submitted a demand note, information gathered by Dawn revealed.
The need has become all the more crucial after the addition over the years of intensive care unit (ICU), burns ward, additional gynaecology operation theatre and renovated private ward to the already sprawling hospital.
Former Hesco Chief Executive Brig (Retd) Tariq Arshad had promised during a visit to the hospital in February 2004 after unannounced load-shedding disrupted work there that he would arrange dual power supply for the hospital.
Going a step further he had said then that every hospital in the province must have an alternate supply of power. The hospital kept pursuing the issue and finally submitted a demand note early this year for alternate power supply and 250 KVA transformer for the angiography machine, which needed a separate supply line for functioning.
“It explains well why the angiography machine’s installation is being delayed,” said Medical Superintendent Dr Khalid Qureshi.
Hesco construction officials had already conducted inspection of the hospital to assess how much material would be required to install an alternate supply, a source revealed. They decided to give separate connections to the hospital from two different feeders of Sarfaraz sub-division, the source added.
One feeder would be fed by Hala grid and the other by Qasimabad grid station, he said.
The source said that the Hesco inspection team had submitted its recommendations to the material management section and it was now up to them to release the material required. The hospital had already deposited with Hesco major portion of amount for the installation work, the source added.
A Hesco spokesman confirmed that the material management section would release the material to the construction staff who he said had already carried out the inspection of the site.
What remained to be done was only erection of poles and supply of alternate source of power. “It is being ensured that the line is installed as early as possible,” he said.
The hospital caters to a large number of patients from Hyderabad and the districts in lower and upper parts of the province.
According to a safe estimate obtained from hospital sources, outpatient department (OPD) recorded 795,179 patients during last one year while casualty reported 211,369 patients.
The number of indoor (admitted) patients stood at 40,502, bed occupancy was 293,367 while 60,155 operations were conducted and 890,557 patients had different pathological tests.
Around 1,700 cases of dog and 94 of snake bites were reported besides 5,998 delivery cases. In addition, 120,161 patients had X-rays, and 2,311 C T Scan and 55,790 ultrasound tests were carried out. Exact number of burns cases could not be obtained.
The hospital is only second in the province after Karachi which has a separate burns ward. Public and private hospitals in Tharparkar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Larkana, Nawabshah, Naushahro Feroze, Jacobabad, Badin and Thatta refer patients in critical condition to the hospital.