SWABI: The district’s main health facility of Bacha Khan Medical Complex Hospital (BKMCH), Shahmansoor, has been facing shortage of specialist doctors.

Hospital sources told this correspondent here on Tuesday that of total 20 posts of specialist doctors in BKMCH nine had been lying vacant due to unknown reasons. They said that with the start of this hospital the local leaders of political parties had claimed that the area people would no longer face shortage of health facilities in future, but their dreams had been shattered.

The anaesthesia specialist has not been transferred to the hospital for a long time and without such a specialist how it could be possible for the doctors to conduct surgeries, said the sources.

They said that in such a situation majority of the patients were referred to Peshawar hospitals, for which people had also to spend their hard eared money on travel and other arrangements.

“When this is the scenario in the main hospital of the health minister’s home district what would be situation in the other government hospitals of the province,” asked Javid Khan, a resident of Maneri.

When contacted, district health officer Dr Riaz said that 17 doctors had been appointed by the government against vacant posts in BKMCH and they would take charge soon. He said that the government was also striving to transfer specialists to the hospital as soon as possible.

When asked, local health officials said that unavailability of advanced laboratories was also a big problem. The patients said that in the absence of specialists in the hospital they were compelled to move to private hospitals for treatment and pay heavy fee there.

The patients said that it was true that during Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government they had starting getting free medicines in the hospital and doctors come in time. However, they said that the hospital needed a general surgeon, gynaecologist, orthopaedic surgeon, anaesthesiologist, paediatrician and other specialists and technical staff to improve health care performance and meet the increasing demand of the patients at the hospital.

The sources said that there was no family accommodation facility for the doctors and some of them had been living with paramedical staff in the hospital’s hostel.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2016