FAISALABAD: The upgraded 250-bed General Hospital, Ghulam Muhammadabad, which was inaugurated on March 16, 2013, still lacks major specialties and the patients are mostly referred to the Allied or DHQ hospitals while only a few are treated at its 10-bed emergency and medical ward.

A gastroenteritis outbreak in the D-Block of Ghulam Muhammadabad in 2006 had panicked the then chief minister Pervaiz Elahi who had announced hospital’s upgrade from 50 to 250 beds at a cost of Rs700 million.

Aslam Ghafoor, waiting in the hospital ground for checkup of his 12-year-old daughter suffering from ear pain, said when he contacted the people at the reception the staff asked him to wait for the doctor concerned.

“After three hours wait, I contacted a nurse who was kind enough to tell me that the hospital had no facility of the ENT ward,” Ghafoor said MS Dr Masood Bukhari has claimed, through a steamer outside the emergency, that facilities of the ENT and eye treatment were available at the hospital. However, the reality is altogether different.

During a visit to the hospital, it was observed that the hospital administration had earmarked rooms for male and female ENT and eye wards, setting up beds, however, both were locked as the government had not yet appointed doctors. A major portion of the hospital was also found locked.

General Hospital lacks all major specialties; patients are referred to other facilities

Presently, the patients are being received at the small emergency of the hospital and only minor surgeries are being conducted while the hospital has no anesthesia department or any professional anesthetist.

Hamid Ali of Rashidabad said the emergency services were not available in the evening and at night when the ward wore a deserted look. People visit the hospital’s emergency, however, a majority of them are referred to the Allied Hospital as it lacked machinery and the latest equipment to treat patients.

“I visited the general hospital with pain in my main artery but instead of giving me even first aid, the staff sent me to the Allied Hospital,” Ali shared his experience.

A doctor, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that even after two years of its upgrade, the hospital lacked major specialties like orthopedic, pulmonology, gastroenterology, cardiology, neurosurgery, eye, dermatology, psychiatry, paediatrics, nephrology, ICU and neurology. He said the hospital’s emergency was not enough as compared to the population of the area. He said appointments of doctors and availability of the latest machinery would resolve many health issues of residents of Ghulam Muhammadabad and adjoining localities while making the hospital fully functional would also reduce the burden on the Allied and the DHQ hospitals.

A couple of years ago, the Punjab governor had given the administrative control of the hospital to the Punjab Medical College (PMC), however, the majority of the hospital affairs, including transfer posting of staff and their salaries, remained with the district government, sources said.

On Mar 11 last, they said, the hospital had been given autonomy by the Punjab government but no facility were announced for it. Now the administrative and financial control of the hospital had been given to the PMC administration.

Dawn contacted the MS for his version through calls and SMS, however, he did not reply.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2015

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