Only three major government hospitals of Karachi are braving heavy load of emergency and accident cases of the whole city while about half a dozen Sindh government hospitals working in the city have no capacity to handle emergency and accident cases.
Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) handles about 75 percent of all accident and emergency cases of Karachi while the remaining 25percent are shared by Civil Hospital Karachi and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH). A very few rich people consult private hospitals when face emergency and accident, but the ratio is negligible as going to some reputed private hospital for emergency and accident case results in a bill ranging from Rs 70,000 to Rs 1,00,000.
Although there are many other Sindh government hospitals in Lyari, Orangi, Laiquatabad, Korangi, Saudabad, Landhi and Ibrahim Haideri, despite posting of doctors, operation theatres and equipment, they do no handle emergency and accident cases and simply refer them to the three major government hospitals, mostly the JPMC. This is why the doctors at emergency departments of JPMC, CHK and ASH always face more work than they can handle easily. A doctor in a busy emergency department commented the government should better close down its so-called Sindh government hospitals and post their doctors and divert their funds to JPMC, CHK and ASH.
The doctors regret that when emergency cases are brought to these government hospitals, they simply give them first aid and directly refer them to the JPMC or in some cases CHK even without their blood grouping and x-ray. Sometimes emergency cases are also referred from the ASH to the JPMC on the plea of absence of orthopaedic or some other surgeon. It not only increases work load of this already overworked hospital but sometimes also put the lives of emergency patients in danger as it takes a long time to shift patients due to traffic jams on roads.
The Sindh government at least needs to double the capacity of the accident and emergency department of the JPMC providing it more doctors, theatres, machines, medicines and funds. The CHK and ASH also need a similar favour.
Last year the Sindh government has announced that the six provincial government-run hospitals of the Sindh health department were given ‘teaching hospital status’. They include the Sindh government SaudabadHospital, Sindh Government Hospital Korangi, SindhGovernmentLiaquatabadHospital, SindhGovernmentNewKarachiHospital, Sindh Government Qatar Hospital Orangi and SindhGovernmentIbrahimHaideriHospital. SindhGovernmentLiaquatabadHospital, NewKarachiHospital and Qatar Hospital Orangi were affiliated with Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), while three other including SaudabadHospital, Sindh Government Hospital Korangi and IbrahimHaideriHospital were linked with Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU).
However, like dozens of other tall claims of the Sindh health department none of these hospitals is practically upgraded as the teaching hospital.
Sindh Health Minister Jam Mahtab Dahar should personally visit these hospital and take sincere efforts to enhance their capacity. It may not be possible for the Sindh health department to really upgrade them as teaching hospitals as many older teaching hospitals do not even function properly, but he can at least arrange that they have capacity to handle at least non-critical accident and emergency cases properly. He can serve Karachi and Karachiites if he would increase the SNE of the emergency and accident department of the JPMC which handles majority of the accident and emergency cases of the city.