Over 60-year-old Hakeem Khan was wandering in the corridors of Poly Clinic in search of a doctor with a slip in his hand while thinking, “Look at my age and my miseries; I cannot not even find the right room.”
Hakeem had some heart problem and was looking for a heart surgeon. He said, “One doctor refers me to the other and the other one to another.” And when finally he reached the wanted doctor, he was not in his room, the old man said. Thousands of poor patients, like Hakeem, suffer daily in the state-run hospitals, sometimes due to faulty x-rays or equipments related to test and at times because of cold attitude of doctors.
These patients are force to suffer in government hospitals because of their poverty as they do not afford to even think of getting treatment at a private hospital or clinic, but the administration and doctors make their sufferings more painful. Almost every second patient is seen complaining about the indifferent attitude of the management in the two major hospitals in the capital city, PIMS and Poly Clinic.
Most of the ultra sounds, x-rays, CT scan and mammography machines have been out of order since long. 50-year-old Khalid Hussain Awan had brought his wife Tasleem Kausar, 45, from District Layyah to the PIMS for the treatment of joint pain. The doctors conducted different laboratory tests like hepatitis B, complete blood picture (Blood-CP) and sugar tests in various departments of PIMS including Immunology, Haematology and Chemical Pathology.
Situation turned for worse when the Blood CP test conducted on August 3 and hepatitis B on July 30 claimed that the patient was suffering from hepatitis B while Haemoglobin (HB) level was also as low as 6.6 against the normal range of 11 to 18. Khalid did not believed in the results as his wife had a surgery last month and all the tests conducted at that time were normal. So he opted for the tests again and the results were completely different from the previous ones.
According to reports, the test conducted with an interval of three days shows hepatitis B was negative with the HB level normal at 12.6. “My wife is suffering from pain in joints and I brought her to PIMS from Layyah so that she could get better treatment but look at the report of her test which shows different results on different dates. I wonder which one those should be considered correct,” he lamented.
This episode questions the authenticity of thousands of tests being conducting in the PIMS and regrettably the poor patients receive treatment on the basis of these reports. Safiya Begum, 30, from Bhara Kahu a suburb area of Islamabad, was sitting with a desperate look on a wooden bench in the Gynaecology Department of PIMS. She had been pregnant for eight months.
“I am sitting here on this bench for hours while waiting for my turn to see the doctor. I am having backache but have to wait because I don’t have much money to consult this doctor privately.” She said, “The doctor kept us waiting and is indulge in gossip with friends as they don’t bother to treat us properly.”
These cases are not isolated ones as every poor patient at these major hospitals has something to share about the attitude of doctors and faulty machines. A official in the Radiology Department says they have brought the issue repeatedly to the notice of their high ups but no action has been taken so far.
He said doctors do not care much about the patients and their meagre financial resources as they prescribed them tests, like ultra-sound, from private labs. It is pertinent to mention that these faulty machines also had produced bogus result for Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani when he visited PIMS recently for a check-up. It was expected that the situation would improve after what happened to the prime minister of the country, giving some respite to the patients in getting the faulty machines repaired but nothing has happened so far.
Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi, also secretary in-charge health, admitted in a recent meeting of National Assembly Standing Committee on Health that the behaviour of doctors and administration at PIMS and Poly Clinic was very pathetic. She said, “PIMS is serving as ‘slaughter house’ for the patients and doctors work only for two to three hours and spend the whole day in taking tea or in chitchat.”
On directives of the health secretary, Dr Shaukat Hameed Kiyani, the Poly Clinic executive director, had done away with the tea break in the hospital but the move remained unfruitful and brought no difference as the authorities were remained unable to implement it.
