LAHORE: Punjab’s largest hospital Mayo Hospital in Lahore has sought donations from citizens for the treatment of burnt children being admitted to its burn unit, Pakistan Today observed on Tuesday.
On one side, the Punjab government makes tall claims for providing free of cost health facilities to its citizens but on the other hand, lacking funds have led the hospital’s management to ‘appeal’ well-off citizens for charity to run day-to-day treatment procedures in the burn unit.
Mayo Hospital has been receiving donations in terms of equipment, the rehabilitation of different departments and also for the construction of new wards. It has now made a charity request for its burn unit.
Currently, the burn unit of Mayo Hospital has been running with 48 beds, among them 23 beds are spared for highly burnt children.
The hospital’s Patients’ Welfare Association (PWA) has started its campaign to collect charity and donations for treatment, grafting and operations of the burn patients, particularly children.
In this regard, the hospital’s PWA has distributed pamphlets and handbills appealing citizens to donate their charity for the treatment of the patients.
The pamphlets read that the machinery and medicines needed to treat a burn patient are very expensive and the hospital receives eight to ten children on a daily basis.
“Burn patients need a long time to be cured while all this time the patients have to suffer from a great pain,” state the pamphlets, adding that a burn patient needs medicines worth rupees 10,000 per month, bandages worth rupees 15,000 and rupees 35,000 for operations. It further reads that burn patients are treated through a skin grafting process which costs rupees 55,000 for one patient.
An office bearer of the PWA told Pakistan Today that thousands of burnt children arrived at Mayo Hospital from across the province while much more are referred to them from other public hospitals.
While seeking anonymity, he said that this campaign was being carried out with the permission of the hospital’s management. “The government provides funds for the patients’ treatment but these funds are not sufficient for complete treatments and this is the reason for seeking donations,” adding that they mostly preferred businessmen, industrialists and other rich people while seeking a donation.
Mayo Hospital’s Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Tahir Khalil told Pakistan Today that the burn unit of the hospital was equipped with modern facilities and there is no deficiency of medicines for these patients. He said that no official of PWA was appointed to collect the donation as this was the responsibility of Social Welfare Association members.
“I have strictly ordered PWA officials to abstain from collecting donations from any citizen,” Khalil said while responding to a question if the hospital needs donations for patients with cancer.