PIMS Burn Center’s up-gradation plan in limbo

Despite the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s announcement, work on the up-gradation of Burn Centre at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) could not be started hitherto due to non-release of funds for the project.

The premier had approved the extension of the 20-bed PIMS Burn Centre to a multi-storey state-of-the-art 70-bed centre in 2016. However, Ministry of Planning, Development & Reform did not approve any fund for the project in the budget 2017-18.

The state-of-the-art burn centre was built at PIMS on December 6, 2007, which was the first of its kind in public sector, where patients are treated free of cost.

However, majority of the burn patients have to deny admission because of limited beds in the facility due to which often heart-wrenching scenes are seen there.

A senior official at PIMS told Pakistan Today that though PIMS administration did hectic efforts to approve the funds, the government paid no heed to it despite the rising cases of burn victims.

He said that the PIMS burn center was the only facility across the country where free treatment has been provided; however it could not carry the huge burden alone, as patients from Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Azad Jummu and Kashmir (AJK) visited the facility.

“The provincial governments equally share the blame, as not a single province has a well-equipped state-of-the-art burn center,” he added.

He said that despite tall claims, KP and Punjab governments could not functional the already completed burn centres each in LHR Peshawar and Jinnah Hospital Lahore.

The official said that the work on the extension of the burn centre should have started long ago but unfortunately no work has been done so far due to non-approval of funds.

In the recent past, a number of tragic burn incidents occurred taking lives of hundreds of people mainly due to non-existence of burn facility there, but even these incidents proved too little for the central as well as the provincial governments to learn any lesson to take some steps on war-footing basis to equip the already existing burn units at least.

Talking to Pakistan Today, Wajibullah, whose three relatives succumbed to burn injuries few days ago, said that one could ask him how painful it was when they were refused admission at PIMS due to non-availability of bed in the center.

He said that three of a family including mother, 16-year son and a 14-year daughter were burn in a cylinder blast at the home in Mansehra.

“The mother of the two died on the spot, whereas the son and daughter were shifted to Ayub Medical Complex from where they were referred to PIMS Burn Center because of non-availability of the burn facility,” he added.

However, he lamented that they were refused admission at PIMS though the patients were quite in critical condition and were referred to Holy Family Hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries.

The aggrieved relative said that the government should at least build burn centers at the provincial capital or else people would be kept dying helplessly, as poor could not afford a single day treatment cost at private facility.

Talking to Pakistan Today, PIMS Burn Care Centre spokesperson said that the prime minister has approved the up-gradation of the burn centre, but no fund has been released for the project till now.

He said that they have been struggling for the extension of the facility since long so as to reduce the refusal ratio; because it is sole burn center where free of cost treatment has been provided.

The mortality rate for burn victims in Pakistan is very high as compared to various countries due to non-availability of the facility at the regional level, because the first two hours are extremely important for the management of burns patients, as it determines the ultimate outcome of the patients, he maintained.

Therefore, he said that burn centres are needed to be established in all the regions so as to manage the patients properly.

He said that they repeatedly advised the provincial governments to set up a four-bed burns ward at DHQ and THQ hospitals so as to ease the burden on the burn centre at PIMS.

The spokesperson said that the management of the burn centre even offered to train the doctors if the government opened new burn units, but they turned a deaf ear to it.