KARACHI - As many as 100 scheduled surgical operations were postponed at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre on Tuesday due to 18-hour long power breakdown, causing grave inconvenience for thousands of visiting and admitted patients.
Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Focal Person Dr Jawaid Akhter Jamali told media that tripping in one of the feeders started from evening of May 16 and continued till May 17 afternoon caused massive power breakdown in the institution. The administration used standby generators to provide electricity to Casualty Department, Intensive Care Units and a few other departments, while there was not electricity for the remaining hospital.
He said the patients and their attendants faced great hardships in late night hours due to power breakdown, while patient care was also badly affected in OPDs hours.
The JPMC management was compelled to postpone about 100 scheduled operations due to unavailability of electricity in morning hours. The supply water to various departments also remained suspended due to the power outage.
Jamali said there are nine standby generators in the hospitals and out of which two are not working while seven others were also very old and not functioning properly.
He informed that the hospital administration called the Karachi-Electric (KE) for restoration of power supply; however, the KE teams could restore the electricity supply of this crucial hospital after lapse of 18 long hours.
He said that Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had assured provision of two heavy power generators to the hospital before the start of summer season during a meeting held with JPMC Executive Director Dr Aneesuddin Bhatti a few days ago. He said that provision of new heavy generators will help manage such awkward situations in near future.
Head of Accident and Emergency Department, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Dr Seemin Jamali said power breakdown partially affected the functioning of emergency department but technical fault was corrected soon. She said routine operations were cancelled but the emergency operations were carried out with the help of a standby generator of the Casualty Department.
LIVER TRANSPLANT SURGERIES PERFORMED AT DOW
Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) is the first public sector institution of Sindh to provide highly specialised liver transplant surgery at Ojha Campus.
The vision of founding Vice Chancellor Prof Masood Hameed Khan and dream of Director Liver Centre Prof Rana Qamar to have living donor Liver Transplant at Dow University of Health Sciences has been fulfilled. Three consequent liver transplants have been done by team of trained surgeons at DUHS accompanied by and team of surgeons from Apollo Hospital India. Team mentor Dr Subhash Gupta who has successfully performed nearly 2000 liver transplants helped the DUHS team along-with his other team members.
During surgery none of the three donors needed blood transfusion. Each recipients was only transfused one or two pints of blood. All three donors now do not need ICU care and will be shifted in the ward soon. All the three patients who are recipients are also absolutely fine and talking and are recovering as per expected parameters. All these patients are communicating with their attendants through video con system of ICU, to avoid infection by direct contact. They are recovering fast.
Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan who has sponsored first 10 patients of liver transplant at DUHS visited the hospital and met the transplant team to boost up their moral and congratulate the team members. He also gave shield of appreciation to the Indian team members. Three patients underwent Living Donor Liver Transplant at Ojha Campus of DUHS by a team of surgeons and other related faculty and staff under the guidance of Prof Shams Nadeem Alam on May 14, 15 and 16. It was monitored by a team from Apollo Hospital New Delhi India led by Dr Subhash Gupta.