Abdullah Syed, an FSc student at GCU, was diagnosed with dengue and admitted to a public hospital for treatment for six days. During his stay at the hospital Abdullah witnessed firsthand the treatment meted out to patients in public hospitals – the small, yet fundamental hardships which the Punjab Health Department was completely oblivious to, and the common man faced everyday, even at major public hospitals of the city, like Mayo Hospital.
The first worrisome detail this young boy noted was the acute shortage of beds in emergency wards. Abdullah had arrived at Mayo Hospital on October 16, when the dengue outbreak was supposedly on a steady decline. However, he reported that patients were made to wait for their turn to occupy beds, at times. “Although the hospital management was trying its best to fight the dengue epidemic, and while the capacity of the emergency wards had been increased to cover the second and third floors too, there were basic flaws in the whole process which made the stay of patients and their caretakers very difficult,” he said.
Abdullah said he saw beds which were gifted to the hospital by a supporter of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. “I knew it was a gift from a supporter of the CM because they were draped with banners of the Sharif brothers and affiliated people. For some odd reason, however, the new beds were put under lockdown while patients were still made to wait outside for beds to be vacated in the wards!” he said. He added that the wards, especially the temporary dengue wards, were full beyond capacity and very suffocating. He said the patients coming for treatment of dengue were already nauseated, and the suffocation added to their condition. “While the hospital was not properly ventilated and the ACs did not work properly, the condition was worsened by the large number of patients flowing into the ward,” he said.
Abdullah, however, applauded the efforts being made by young doctors in the fight against dengue. He said the young doctors were very tolerant towards the patients, although they were many in numbers and fidgety at times, adding that the young doctors were very active and seen moving swiftly in and out of the wards. On the other hand, he bitterly criticised the attitude of senior doctors who came to check the patients according to their shifts. “Doctors like Nasir Mehmood Butt who visited the ward in the daytime were very rude, snobbish and seemed to care little about the patients,” he said. “He used to speak very obnoxiously to most of his patients, and snubbed at least three to four patients in the ward everyday. He was scary, and not someone you’d like to have around when you’re sick,” he added. Young Abdullah was of the view that such doctors pulled down the reputation of the entire hospital, which was damaging for the administration and government, because even people like the Medical Superintendent and the Emergency Director were working very hard.
After highlighting other issues like the lack of seating space for attendants, broken drip-hangers, broken beds, unchanged bed sheets, no namaz rooms, lack of coordination between hospital departments and the free movement of cats and other animals in the wards, he said the lack of wheel chairs was a big issue. He added that the dengue ward on the first floor had been allotted only one wheel chair to serve a ward of 55 patients.
Tehmina Khaliq, mother of Abdullah, who stayed in the hospital with him for six days, claimed that the entire stay had been extremely exhausting for her. She said the tiniest mismanagement by doctors forced her to run up and down the stairs many times, though everything could have been done in one round, had the doctors been more careful. Moreover, the hospital administration liked to burden the patient with numerous unnecessary bills, slips and receipts, she said, adding that the entire process was swamped under layers of bureaucracy, which hampered the administration’s ability to deal with patients and maintain records efficiently. She said the blood bank was under immense pressure, as everyone was after blood. “I think the shortage of blood is a major issue as the blood bank was full of people at all times,” she added.
Abdullah’s parents overall applauded the hospital administration’s efforts and said the MS and emergency directors were actively participating in the fight against dengue. “The magnitude of the dengue epidemic is the main reason behind little mismanagements. However, the hospital kept clean all the time and spraying was done regularly after short intervals, while the senior admin members kept checking and visiting the wards,” they said. They added that the Punjab Health Department’s most notable contribution to the fight against dengue was making the expensive platelet kits available free of cost. The Punjab government had done the public a huge service by handing free platelet kits, they added.
