- Chillers installed in Islamabad’s largest public hospital have been out of order for over nine months
ISLAMABAD: The mortuary of the federal capital’s largest public hospital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), is in a dilapidated state.
The icing on the top is the mortuary’s chillers are out of order for past nine months, effectively rendering the facility without space to store bodies.
During a visit to the mortuary, it was also observed that no one was ensuring the maintenance of the building.
The situation was exacerbated in the immediate aftermath of a plane crash near Abbottabad, as bodies of victims from PK-661 were brought to PIMS for identification, but owing to lack of space, they had to be sent to Rawat for storage.
A PIMS official confirmed that due to capacity issue and dysfunctional cold stores, the hospital sends bodies to the Polyclinic Hospital and Rawat for storage.
He said that the mortuary was shut down because of the dysfunctional cold stores, as it remained of no use.
“Look at the grass and herbs sprouting alongside the mortuary, how one can believe that it is a mortuary,” he asked.
Asking them to make the mortuary functional is a far cry as they can’t even trim the grass, he added.
The official explained that Polyclinic Hospital can accommodate seven to eight bodies, while PIMS’ morgue is non-functional; hence they face problem during emergency time.
He said that there were a number of incidents when the hospital was unable to store the bodies which say a lot about the competency of the management.
When contacted, PIMS Administrator Dr Altaf Hussain said that the mortuary at PIMS has been closed as some work is underway and soon it would be functional.
He said that the chillers are non-functional and they have been storing the bodies in CMH’s mortuary and quickly added that it would be made functional within few days since work on its repairing is going-on with full pace.
PIMS currently provides ‘mortuary services’ to Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Potohar region and Azad Jammu and Kashmir for examination and dissection to determine the cause of death at a small building. But things become unmanageable during natural or man-made disasters, so there’s an adequate ground for the establishment of a proper, modern morgue at the hospital.
The building accommodates eight to 10 bodies at a time, but things spiral out of control during emergency situations, especially in the wake of terrorist activities and natural disasters.
