PESHAWAR: Shortage of children beds at government hospitals has been affecting the health of patients requiring specialised care as they are being referred from district hospitals to medical teaching institutions unnecessarily, according to paediatricians.

They said that referral of children from different districts caused shortage of space in tertiary care hospitals in Peshawar. Pakistan Paediatrics Association (PPA) wants the district level hospitals not to refer patients unnecessarily and send only those, who are not manageable at the local level, to tertiary care health facilities.

The office-bearers of PPA told this scribe that they wanted the medical directors of MTIs and medical superintendents of the district headquarters hospitals to countersign the referral of the patients so that sending of normal patients to Peshawar could be stopped.

On December 14, the chairperson of department of child health at Khyber Teaching Hospital wrote a letter to the administration that the department was on the brink of collapse owing to admission of a large number of critically-ill children and neonates from all over the province due to seasonal respiratory sicknesses.

“The medical staff and services provided could cater for only approximately 164 patients (neonates and children), however, over the last 24 hours we have admitted 336 patients,” said the latter. This large number of admission of patients has been observed over the last few weeks that is making the work environment difficult and causing stressful situations for both staff and parents of sick children.

“In order to deliver safe patient care, it is therefore requested to stop all regular and elective admissions including those of seriously-ill children as beds are not available,” said the letter.

It said that in case of serious ailment, the health workers should provide emergency treatment to patients before shifting them to the nearest hospital with available beds. The hospital has two wards with 180 beds for children and a nursery ward where 45 beds exist.

Ideally, there should be one patient on one bed but the number of patients was far higher to accommodate them, it said.

According to PPA, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the only province where a children hospital does not exist and the number of children beds is only 2,000 compared to more than 50, 000 for adult patients.

Situation with regard to children beds is no different in Lady Reading Hospital, which has 102 beds in three wards and 28 emergency beds.

The hospital has 50 nursery beds but owing to more patients, two patients have to be admitted on a single bed. Same is true for Hayatabad Medical Complex where 30 beds for neonates and six ICU beds are not sufficient to meet the requirements.

PPA office-bearers said that children were dying of simple ailments owing to shortage of health services and delay in completion of Khyber Institute of Child Health, which was started 13 years ago. Except, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, all other provinces had child health institutes, they said.

They said that common health issues among neonates were prematurity, low birth weight and perinatal asphyxia (oxygen deficiency at birth) that were manageable through infrastructure and trained and well-equipped health workers.

In Pakistan, about 54 of 1,000 neonates died per day and half of them expired for want of treatment, they added.

“The province requires nursery wards at district and tehsil level to bring down mortalities because many children die while being transported to Peshawar."

Pakistan has 5.6 doctors and 8.1 nurses per 10,000 newborns,” said the PPA representatives.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2021