MARDAN, April 3: The hiring of anaesthetic technicians instead of qualified doctors by private hospitals in Mardan city has been causing not only anesthetic complications but sometimes deaths among patients, it has been learnt.

Apart from the two big and some small government-run hospitals there are more than a dozen private hospitals in different areas of the district.

In the last six months, several patients have lost their lives during operations owing to the anesthesia overdose by technicians in private hospitals of the city. On several occasions, relatives of the victims staged protest demonstrations demanding stern action against the responsible persons, sources say.

The anesthetic technicians at the private hospitals almost run all affairs at the operation theatre during operations, the sources maintain.

Though most of these private hospitals claim to have hired experienced and skilled doctors of every category including the anesthetic one but situation on ground is otherwise. Hiring inexperienced doctors and technicians helps hospitals to pay less to them and generate more money.

It has also been observed that the anesthetic technicians come to operation theatre just minutes before an operation is conducted and take a cursory look at the patient's history and decide for surgery without much study of the case and health state of the patient.

Without taking into account the patient's history or assessing whether or not he/she is ready for anesthesia and operation, doctors should not operate upon them but this practice is going on in private hospitals of the district. And, unfortunately, there is no regulatory body to keep a check on such practice, sources point out.

Sources say, the private hospitals in which such kind of incidents have occurred include Qazi Medical Centre and Hospital Par Hoti, Mohammad Hospital Chato Chowk, Ihsan Medical Centre, Mardan Medical Complex (a government run-hospital) and several other private hospitals.

According to sources the government-run Mardan Medical Complex got a qualified anaesthetic doctor just two weeks ago. Talking to Dawn Dr Mohammad Bashir Khan, an anesthesia specialist at the district headquarters hospital Mardan, said that legally an anesthetic technician was not allowed to give anesthesia dose to a patient at operation time. He added it was only the job of a qualified anesthetic doctor.

He asked the health authorities to make it mandatory for the private hospitals to hire qualified anaesthetic doctors and stop playing with precious live of people.

He also stressed the need for regulating the affairs of the private and public hospitals to end loopholes in the healthcare facilities.

He said private hospitals should be given time limit to improve their working and facilities failing which they should be closed down in the interest of public health.