The administration of Sindh’s largest cardiac hospital, the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), has not conducted even a single surgery since Thursday, resulting in difficulties for patients, majority of whom are children, who have arrived in the city from all across the country.
The Department of Cardiac Surgery of the NICVD was supposed to conduct around 24 surgeries in these three days. However, many of these patients had to be shifted to private hospitals. The hospital administration told some of the attendants of the patients who were supposed to be operated upon that the operations were postponed due to shortage of oxygen, whereas others were informed that the power generators were not working properly.
However, sources said that by postponing the operations of patients in critical condition, the hospital administration is trying to blackmail the Sindh government into releasing the biannual episode of the hospital budget. Just on Wednesday, a notification of Rs 70 million medicine budget for the NICVD was issued; and the Sindh health secretary announced issuing the remaining budget, but despite that, the hospital administration is trying to pressurise the provincial government.
Three major federally-run hospitals – the NICVD, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, and the National Institute of Child Health- were recently devolved to the Sindh government after implementation of the 18th amendment. The administration of all these hospitals launched protests against this move and demanded the government to declare all these hospitals as autonomous bodies.
Not only this, but despite being on very important positions, the directors of these hospitals patronised the protests during which the Outdoor Patients Departments (OPDs) and emergency wards were boycotted; and now the NICVD administration has postponed conducting operations. NICVD Director Shahzaman Khan confirmed the news over the phone that the operations have been postponed since three days. When asked about the reason behind the postponement at such an important hospital, he was unable to provide any.
“Yes, not a single operation has been conducted in three days, but it’s a routine matter and there is no news in this,” the director said before disconnecting his phone. However, when the Sindh Chief Minister (CM) House was contacted, CM’s Information Adviser Waqar Mehdi said that an inquiry would be conducted; and if it is found that the NICVD administration deliberately postponed the operations, then action would be taken against them.
“We are trying to release the entire budget of all these hospitals and the health secretary is looking into the matter. I shall personally ask him to look into this matter as well and if unfair play is detected, there will be action against the NICVD administration,” the adviser added. The NICVD is the biggest cardiac facility in the country with 650 staff members and 360 beds, but there are actually over 400 serviceable beds with three medical wards, a surgical ward, a paediatric ward, three coronary care units, a surgical intensive care unit and a 28-bed emergency unit.
The daily OPD attendance is around 1,200 patients; and an average of 250 patients are attended to in the emergency unit, of which around 30 patients, including 20 with acute myocardial infarction, are admitted everyday. These patients visit the hospital not only from other districts of the province, but from other provinces as well. The hospital record also revealed that over 3,000 coronary angiographies and cardiac catheterisation studies are carried out every year, and over 500 coronary angioplasties are done per year, whereas temporary and permanent pacemakers are implanted routinely.
Though, it is a State-run hospital, the NICVD practically works as semi-private hospital. A labourer who brought his 14-year-old daughter for an operation told this scribe that he has paid Rs 40,600 for the operation apart from arranging for blood and medicine. Despite this, the operation has been postponed twice in the past two weeks.
