SARGODHA, Sept 29: Despite an expenditure of over Rs857 million to upgrade the Sargodha DHQ Hospital, the newly-constructed building has not been made operational yet.

The Punjab chief minister was expected to inaugurate the building by the end of July but due to several incomplete parts of the building neither was it inaugurated nor made functional.

The building’s ground floor constructed on 53,860 sq ft comprised OPD, diagnostic, casualty, professors rooms, physiotherapy unit, ICU, while the first floor constructed on 49,900 sq ft contained the admin block, OPD, wards, neurosurgery unit, operation theatre. The 49,900 sq ft second floor and 36,300 sq ft third floor comprised wards besides allied buildings and services, including laundry, garages, generator room, facility centre and mortuary.

A parking area, water supply and sewerage, electrical substation had also been established on 95,000 sq ft, but astonishingly the Punjab government refused to provide Rs10 million previously approved for installation of a lift. The old building of the DHQ would be demolished and trauma centre set up, and the department concerned had been instructed to submit a feasibility report in this regard.

The new building though fulfils the needs of the teaching hospital, but without a lift it would not be useful for patients on the second and third floors. A payment of Rs25 million had not yet been made to the contractor, while an amount of Rs5 million that was further required for the hospital had now been revised to Rs10.714 million and was awaiting approval.

Currently, a large number of specialist doctors were employed with the hospital but all of them had their own hospitals or were working in private hospitals. They usually used the DHQ Hospital as a “booking centre”.

The Punjab government had decided to set up special departments for kidney and heart treatment besides establishment of a children hospital in the city. All the projects were in their initial stage and there was no hope for their completion in the near future.

Though the citizens were happy after establishment of a medical college in Sargodha but there were no satisfactory arrangements for treatment of critical patients and they were referred to the Allied Hospital or a hospital in Lahore.

Dr Muhammad Nawaz claimed specialist doctors for kidney transplant were available in Sargodha but not the facility itself, either in government or private sector. Another doctor claimed the facility of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) was available in private hospitals but not government sector, while in private ones also it had not become popular or met with any success due to its high cost.

Moreover, several incidents of doctors’ negligence had been reported recently, while an FIR was also lodged against lady doctors. Incidents such as operation of a healthy arm instead of the fractured one and leaving a towel inside a patient’s abdomen during operation had been recently reported at the DHQ Hospital. Private hospitals were extorting money from patients on the pretext of medical tests and medicines that were not available in the market.

There was only one dialysis department funded by a private trust providing free facilities, but it was also unable to meet the needs of the patients. It was learnt that funds or medicines provided by the Punjab government were misused by hospital staff and were mostly finished in just a few months.

They were mostly given to government officials and political elites, but not a single tablet was provided to poor patients. These issues have been taken up several times with the high-ups of the Health Department but there was no improvement and even heavy expenditures on upgrading the hospital was not good news for poor patients as they know all facilities would be provided to the privileged class. Such behaviour of the civil hospital management is helping quacks who have become active in and around the hospital.

They are also working as agents of some doctors running businesses privately in exchange of commission. The quacks refer their patients to doctors for further treatment.