- Patients, their attendants complain about poor sanitary conditions, shortage of beds
- 5,000 patients visit Islamabad’s biggest 250-bed hospital daily
Islamabad’s biggest hospital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, is unable to provide necessary facilities to patients as a number of them have to spend their days and nights in the open under appallingly filthy conditions.
Some of the patients and their attendants, especially those coming from far flung areas, complained that due to non availability of beds in different wards, they had to spend their days and nights either at footpaths or in lawns of the hospital.
Both the inner and outer premises of the hospital give an ugly look due to poor sanitary conditions. A cursory look of the wards gives the impression that they have not been painted for the past many years. The floor and staircases remain covered with filth too.
Beds for many patients have also been placed in the corridors of the overcrowded wards and most of them are without the white bed-sheets. The covers of only a few mattresses are intact, as most of them have worn out. In the worst case scenario, patients are left on statures in the lawns of the hospital.
Some attendants complained that the bed-sheets were not cleaned properly as their patients were getting medicine or blood stained bed-sheets.
The situation is not quite different at the emergency and OPD, as they present the look of a railway station with a large number of patients waiting their turn.
Similarly, the lawns, where most of the visitors sit along with their patients, are not being properly looked after. The gardeners pay no attention to the wild bushes in the grass.
Also, the parking lots are loaded with vehicles where the contractors charge the patients and attendants round the clock whereas at the nearby allied hospitals in Rawalpindi there is no parking fee charged.
Besides, the hospital staff’s management of the waste material is even worst as sanitary workers throw garbage in the open, making the hospital a breeding ground for diseases.
Nevertheless, the PIMS administration said that almost 5,000 patients visited the hospital daily which only has 250-bed arrangement.
When asked, many visitors opined that the government must pay attention to provision of facilities for the patients and their attendants at this hospital.