PESHAWAR, Sept 26: The government of Germany is supporting the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to set up burn and trauma wards in three district headquarters hospitals of the province to provide specialised services to the patients, according to officials.

They said that provincial government would run those wards under a Memorandum of Understanding. The construction of the first-ever burn wards in Bannu, Chitral and Dir had started.

These wards will provide prompt treatment to the victims of burn and trauma in these districts also to the population of surrounding areas. The project will cost Rs630 million and the wards will be operational by March next year, according to Shahzada Pervez Syed, international consultant for the German-sponsored Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan Regional Integrated Programme.

“The programme is aimed at building three similar wards in Paktia, Nangrahar and Logar provinces in Afghanistan. We are working to help the people living at a distance of 50 kilometres on either side of the Pak-Afghan border,” Mr Syed said.

According to him, the initiative will cement bond of brotherhood and create harmony among the communities and establish peace in Central Asia.

Land has been provided by the government for the project on the premises of the district headquarters hospitals and construction work is in progress.

Mr Syed said patients with burn and trauma would receive all facilities under the same roof in those wards. Each of the wards will have intensive care units to improve emergency care of the people with burn wounds.

“The people often use same room for cooking and sleeping due to poverty resulting in burn incidents,” he said.

The specialised units would have its own laboratory, blood bank and radiology section besides offering psychological, plastic surgery and rehabilitation services to the patients, Mr Syed said.

Presently majority of the burn patients die owing to non-availability of treatment at the state-run hospitals, as their relatives can’t afford the expenses of transporting the patients to Kharian where the only ward exists.

The programme also focuses on the training of Afghan doctors as health infrastructure has been affected badly there owing to the decades-long war.

Prof Mohammad Tahir, head of plastic surgery department at Hayatabad Medical Complex, told Dawn that not only burn patients would benefit from the new wards but the same would also lessen burden on Peshawar’s hospitals.

He said that the province had only 38 beds for plastic surgery that were also located in Peshawar.

Prof Tahir said that the wards were desperately needed in view of the patients afflicted with physical deformities as facial trauma not only required medical treatment but also faced psychological problems and needed rehabilitation.

The patients requiring plastic and reconstructive surgery had to wait for long as a 14-bed ward at Lady Reading Hospital and 12 beds each at Hayatabad Medical Complex and Khyber Teaching Hospital were not sufficient to cope with patients’ load, he said.

“The new wards will benefit the people (in these districts) as they wouldn’t be required to rush their patients to Peshawar. They will get modern facilities in the most modern wards in their own areas,” Prof Tahir said.

Dr Tahmeedullah, Associate Professor at the same ward, said he had started training doctors, paramedics and nurses to run those wards after their completion.

“There are 10 two-day workshops for health professionals from both the countries. We have five trainings in which about 50 persons have been imparted necessary technical training, trauma management, plastic surgery and emergency care,” he said.

Dr Tahseenullah said that they were training health staff of the relevant districts as they had opted to join the wards as professionals after they became operational. “We have planed to prepare human resources for the wards so we can start them without delay,” he said.