PESHAWAR: The construction of Maulvi Ameer Shah Memorial Hospital to reduce workload on Lady Reading Hospital has proved an exercise in futility as patients avoid visiting it owing to non-availability of facilities, according to sources.

They said equipment at the hospital and several parts of its building were rusting. They said that the previous government started the hospital in 2009 but it didn’t make any progress owing to appointment of diploma-holders instead of specialists against the basic objective of the project, a brainchild of a former military governor, who had tasked late Malik Saad, the then head of municipalities, to establish women and children hospital on the plot of Roadways House.

The project went into hibernation when Malik Saad went back to police department. A medical superintendent of the hospital was sent to jail by the court on account of massive corruption and his failure to make the facility functional, said sources.

They said that the hospital was not admitting patients till 2012 on the plea that the building was not completed but at the same time government allocated funds for purchase of medicines etc. A former secretary health took notice of the situation and it started hospitalisation of women and children.

Diploma holders appointed at Maulvi Ameer Shah Memorial Hospital instead of specialist doctors

However, only 30 per cent beds in the gynaecology ward and 22 per cent in pediatrics remained occupied because patents didn’t come there and preferred to visit LRH, located at a stone’s throw distance, sources said. The government had so far transferred many medical superintendents for poor performance.

As its last efforts to improve services, the health department ordered its merger with LRH in 2015 to develop a full-fledged specialised hospital. The move hasn’t yet taken shape due to stay orders issued by Peshawar High Court against its merger.

The gynecologists and paediatricians at LRH were supposed to work at the hospital and upgrade the facility. Sources said that upgradation of the hospital could ensure 100 per cent bed occupancy when the patients found the doctors of LRH there.

LRH, the biggest hospital of the province, is facing acute shortage of beds in its children and gynea wards where two patients are put on one bed.

The government had planned to start inducting trainee medical officers for post-graduation in paeds and gynea departments but the existing staffers, who thought they would lost their positions when the plan was implemented, blocked the move through court, sources said.

It has stopped emergency operations on critically-ill or injured people. The CT scan machine, 12-bed intensive care unit and costly equipment, such as laparoscope and fluoroscope have gone into disuse due to lack of maintenance.

“Subsequently, the situation with regard to patients’ care at the hospital located in Hashtnagri has been deteriorating,” sources said. The falling standard of the facility has also worried the health department, which has pinned hopes on LRH to run the category B hospital, having gynaecology, pediatrics, radiology, pathology and anesthesia departments.

“But after several years, it is run by medical officers, who are seen everywhere including outpatients departments (OPD), emergency, wards and operation theatres,” said sources.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2016