Shaukat Khanum Hospital has yet to come forward to offer free-of-cost diagnostic facility for dengue patients at its collection centres across the city despite several government requests to the private sector to join hands in handling the deadly epidemic, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Heads of several private teaching hospitals and clinics, after holding a meeting with the Punjab government, announced free diagnostic facilities to cope up with the severest epidemic which has hit the city in decades. In a recent development, the Punjab government also took a private laboratory on board and established 10 blood collection centres in different parts of the city to ease the ailing citizens.
Despite all government efforts hundreds of suspects are coming to different blood testing facilities in both public and private sectors with an increasing number of positive cases everyday, further underlining the gravity of the situation. However, free-of-cost blood testing facility is not available at any of the 12 collection centres of Shaukat Khanum Hospital, which has “disappointed” many dengue suspects coming for a blood test.
“I’ve got my blood tested from the Shaukat Khanum collection centre at Samanabad and paid Rs 400 for it. I even argued with the staff not to charge for the test as is being done in various other private and public health facilities. I never expected that one of the trusted names in health service will not come forward to help at a time when the entire city is under the fear of a deadly mosquito.
Imran Khan should have independently announced free diagnostic facility if it did not want to join hands with the Punjab government,” Khaleel, a dengue suspect told Pakistan Today. “This may be a small amount for the rich, but the poor in many cases are even burdened with travelling expenses to and from a health facility. Imran Khan, who claims to be a leader of the poor, has ignored them at such a critical time,” he added.
Punjab Health Parliamentary Secretary Saeed Elahi however said, “I talked to Shaukat Khanum Hospital CEO Dr Faisal Sultan sometime back and he assured me of extending full cooperation to the Punjab government to help the dengue patients.” He added that Shaukat Khanum was a charity hospital and the land was given to Imran Khan by PML-N President Nawaz Sharif.
“These major hospitals have well-equipped laboratories and requisite human resource to handle such epidemics. I think Shaukat Khanum Hospital should come forward not only to help dengue patients but flood victims of Sindh as well,” Elahi added. The Shaukat Khanum Hospital spokesperson said that “basically” it was a cancer hospital so free-of-cost treatment would affect routine working.
“On our part, we are offering round-the-clock diagnostic facilities at all collection centres which, earlier, used to closed at 10pm. Moreover, we are offering concessions on dengue specific blood tests besides creating awareness among the people regarding the deadly fever,” the spokesperson added.
And what 'awareness', if I may ask, are they creating and have created by now? After all its been more than a week since the outbreak of disease (Dengue fever) and 'inbreak' of extra money for these 'humane' labs.
it seems punjab govt is keen on playing dirty politics with an issue they cannot resolve. SKH is a cancer hospital and donors who donate their pay it to treat cancer patients and if there is some sense of complying with charter or honesty in the punjab govt then they could ve realized that funds for one specific cause cannot be used for other. for example funds from imran khan flood relief should not go to SKH. this will be against the transparency and fair dealing but punjab govt cannot or doesnt want to understand this because they are not able to solve a problem created by a fever and now they are looking for shoulders to put the burden and blame on . their friends in media are supporting them well too because their mindset also cannot understand how to make big projects like shaukat khanum hospital sustainable without falling into political point scoring like on dengue fever issue which can easily be solved if govt machinery only performs averagely not even extra ordinary performance is required. if SKH has to support efforts against dengue then they need to call for separate donations as they are not backed by taxation power as government which has failed as usual in solving routines problems.
Comments are closed.