HYDERABAD: Some rag-pickers were rummaging through charred remains of what were household articles in search of some saleable items in a burnt down house in Gharibabad while the house owner Ravi Tanboli was busy clearing debris from the rooms with the help of sanitation workers.

Eleven members of Ravi’s family had suffered burns after a fire broke out on the premises on Aug 10 due to accumulation of gas from a leaked pipe. Seven of the victims later died during treatment while the remaining four, who were all children, were still struggling for their lives at burns ward in Civil Hospital Karachi.

The fire broke out when Ravi’s sister-in-law tried to burn a stove in a small veranda on the ground floor of his room. “All were staying in one room,” Ravi said outside the premises which still gave off smell of smoke when this correspondent visited him a couple of days after the tragedy.

“Esha, sister of Sagar’s wife Usha, was staying with us as her wedding was due shortly. So, she decided to spend time with her sister. I am completely shaken and devastated after the Aug 10 tragedy in my house,” said a distraught Ravi, a paramedic at Liaquat University Hospital’s (LUH) City branch.

“I and my family survived as we live in a room upstairs,” he recalled.

All burn victims were first shifted to LUH’s burns ward but as usually they had to be shifted to Karachi on doctors’ advice. “I finally shifted them to the burns unit at Civil Hospital Karachi where seven of them have died, one after the other. I am now praying for the children’s lives as they are my whole soul,” he said in a tremulous voice.

The dead included Ratan (Ravi’s father), Savitri (mother), Sagar (brother), Usha (Sagar’s wife), Esha, (Usha’s sister), Ravi’s sister Anita alias Ainee and Shaharyar (Anita’s son). The survivors are; Sagar’s daughter Mayuri alias Bhumi, 4, Sagar’s sons Ayush, 2.5 years, and Zeeshan alias Eshu and Anita’s daughter, Muskan, 3. Except Sagar, who had 25pc burn injuries, the others had severe burns.

The doctors at LUH burns ward avoid handling victims with moderate to severe burns as the ward lacked trained staff required for handling burns patients, some necessary facilities and a burns patients-only intensive care unit (ICU).

As a result, the patients’ transportation — that too depending on availability of hospital ambulances — to Karachi further reduced chances of their survival, said a doctor, adding “therefore, we avoid handling patients with severe injuries”.

For Ravi the most perplexing thing was that Sagar could not recover in LUH’s burns ward even with 25pc-30pc burns on his body. “Due to the nature of his wounds, I shifted him to LUH after doctors’ permission as he was manageable there but his condition deteriorated soon and had to be shifted to CHK where he breathed his last,” said Ravi.

According to him, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences’ (LUMHS) plastic surgeon Prof Dr Mahesh examined him but he did not pay attention to his patient. “I wonder how Sagar died. He perhaps died due to shock and psychological trauma,” claimed Prof Mahesh.

“When Sagar was brought to CHK, I was told by doctors that even his platelets count was not checked at LUH which were just 40,000,” he complained. “I kept asking doctors to keep him on effective antibiotics but in vain”.

He said: “You can imagine what ordinary burn victims go through at LUH”.

Lack of dedicated burns unit

It was the second massive fire tragedy in a year but the dedicated burns unit at LUH still remains dysfunctional for a host of reasons.

A young man and two children died of burns caused by spilling of oil from a transformer on June 18, 2021, in Goods Naka area. Ten

persons, including children, died in another transformer blast on July 22 in Latifabad’s Akbari mosque area.

Fire tragedies continue unabated but a dedicated burns unit at LUH keeps eluding poor people of lower Sindh, who have no other recourse but to rush to LUH.

Successive administrations of the hospital keep shifting the existing under-staffed burns ward and it has presently been set up in the building of cardiology unit as its older premises had was occupied by some other ward.

The ward works under ad hoc management. Its staff has been borrowed from other departments, who lacked special training. It does not have its own laboratory, forcing patients to shuttle to and from X-ray department, which was irritating for patients.

The ground plus three-storey building of LUH’s dedicated burns unit has been constructed and its paraphernalia have been procured. It now awaits appointment of trained staff. “Everything has been provided in the burns unit except human resource,” said LUH medical superintendent Dr Abdul Hafeez Abro.

“Having inspected the building, I am ready to make it functional even with minimum possible staff,” he said, adding he needed to consult Prof Dr Mahesh, the plastic surgeon, who had specialty in the area.

Burns unit occupied

The burns unit with 64 beds and 16-bed ICU was built at a cost of Rs93.361m in old doctors’ hostel opposite present OPD. The machinery’s procurement cost stood at Rs67.941m, taking total cost to Rs161.302m.

While the unit has not yet started functioning, its one floor has already been occupied. A signboard of ‘oral and maxillofacial surgery operation theatre’ has been erected there.

It was learnt that ear, nose and tongue ward would be shifted there too, thus reducing space of this much awaited “dedicated full-fledged burns unit” on its own premises.

“Every time we get the axe and we have to migrate to another location. The present place is a general ward with no air conditioned rooms,” said Prof Mahesh.

He said that he had been asking the LUH administration not to give space of the burns unit to other disciplines. “But it appears no one understands the importance of a full-fledged burns unit. We hear the ENT ward will be housed here too. This won’t be fair. We just need staff as per approved project document to start the ward,” said Dr Mahesh.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2022