After the deadly Shikarpur bomb blast last year, people from all walks of life have appealed the provincial health department of Sindh to improve all district headquarters hospitals in Sindh but to no avail.
The deadly bomb attack on Ashura mourners in Jacobabad has again highlighted the need of giving a serious attention to the government district headquarters hospitals of the province where the patients have been suffering unnecessarily due to apathy of bureaucracy.
The Shikarpur bomb blast had exposed the capacity of the district headquarters hospital of Shikarpur as the injured were sent to the teaching hospitals of Larkana and Sukkur and many of them died on way to hospital. Later the remaining survivors were airlifted to Karachi. This year also same knee-jerk response of the provincial government was witnessed after the Jacobabad incident as the injured were first rushed to Sukkur and Larkana and later the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) airlifted them to Karachi.
Improving and upgrading the district headquarter hospitals in Sindh has been an old demand of the citizens of this province but the rulers for the reasons best known to them are not ready to resolve the healthcare problems of their voters in rural areas and facilitate them near their doorsteps.
Not only after deadly road accidents, bomb blasts and terrorism bids, the seriously injured people are finally shifted to Karachi hospitals, but also during normal days. The patients in need of emergency care are shifted from all districts to Karachi as the government hospitals in all districts saving Hyderabad and Karachi lack proper territory or emergency care. Even the teaching hospitals of Larkana and Sukkur, sadly, lack proper mechanisms to serve patients as their professors and surgeons, generally, get heavy salaries from the government but work in privately-owned medical centers.
The medical fraternity has been demanding to upgrade district headquarters hospitals of Sindh. Both Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) and Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) have repeatedly demanded to raise technical capacity of the district hospitals in Sindh but in vain.
Many years back, Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan had announced to upgrade all district headquarters hospitals in the province to the level of teaching hospitals, but sadly like many other important plans of the Sindh governor, this visionary plan is also yet to be implemented.
The medical fraternity feels that the provincial government is fully capable financially and technically to upgrade the district headquarters hospitals of Sindh, as after the 18th amendment and National Financial Awards, money and funding is no more a serious problem. However, the main issue is the corrupt bureaucracy which will be deprived of its commission and kickbacks when seriously injured survivors of bomb blasts, terrorism incidents and road accidents are shifted to the costly private hospitals of Karachi. Providing trauma care facilities to the people in district hospitals means less profit for these private medical centers and less commission for their patrons in the ranks of bureaucracy.
However, irrespective of the financial loss to handful of corrupt people, the citizens of Sindh would be greatly benefited if the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) government, led by Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah with a respectable senior medical professional Dr Mahtab Hussain Dahar as provincial health minister, takes war footing steps to upgrade the district hospitals of the province to the level of teaching hospitals having emergency and trauma care facilities.
