The construction of Orange Line Metro Train is making the patients, doctors and staff of Mayo Hospital Lahore suffer equally as electricity supply to the hospital was cut off from 9am to 3pm on Wednesday to enable the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) officials shift transmission wires and poles to clear the passage for the orange train.
Malik Muhammad Afzal, an attendant of a patient told Pakistan Today that it is extremely difficult to sit in the ward without electricity. The patients who are critical cannot sit in open space but those with minor ailments prefer to spend most of the time in open space to beat the heat, he said.
A patient named Omer Farooq could not be operated upon due to non-availability of electricity at the orthopedic operation theatre on Wednesday. He was told to come next week for the surgery of his fractured arm. There were many patients like Farooq whose surgeries were delayed because of the power cut on Wednesday.
“I usually do ultrasound of 70 to 100 patients in routine but I could not do even a single ultrasound today because of non-availability of electricity,” Dr Ali Khawaja from Radiology department told Pakistan Today. He was of the view that patients suffer badly every Wednesday as X-ray, CT Scan and many other tests are not possible without electricity.
Dr Salman Kazmi from East Medical Ward (EMW) of Mayo Hospital told Pakistan Today that several cases of electricity breakdown were witnessed in the past three months in the hospital.
“It is the violation of Supreme Court’s order as the apex court has ruled that the hospitals must be exempted from any kind of electricity load shedding,” he said. He was of the view that there was complete blackout in the whole hospital except for the main emergency, which was being supplied power through generators.
A few days ago, a report was published in this newspaper in which it was discussed how ambulances have to take a longer route to reach the hospital because of construction work being carried out on Hall Road.
Dr Amjad Shehzad, Medical Superintendent (MS) of Mayo Hospital told Pakistan Today that the hospital has 16 generators but they were not enough to supply power to the entire hospital.
“On Wednesday, we tried to make sure that the emergency must get uninterrupted power supply. Some operations were postponed while some were carried out when power supply was restored to the hospital,” he said.
Liaqat Ali, Assistant Manager Operation from LESCO’s Anarkali Sub-division, told Pakistan Today that electricity was suspended to four feeders for the construction work of the orange train.
“Electricity is shut down for the safety of workers as heavy wires and poles are being shifted from the route of train.” The hospital administration was informed a month in advance about the electricity breakdown so they had sufficient time to make appropriate arrangements,” he said.
