LARKANA: While a host of diseases, described as airborne, vector borne and water borne, have surfaced in the flood-hit areas of Larkana district, the number of patients reporting at the Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH) has increased manifold and the administration of this major health facility is faced with a shortage of staff.

Most of the patients coming these days to the Children Hospital, a part of the CMCH, are from IDP (internally displaced persons) families.

Unhygienic conditions created by stagnant rainwater and sewage around the hospital complex has also provided spaces for hatcheries of mosquitoes, houseflies and other insects.

Senior doctors lamented that the Larkana Municipal Corporation was in the practice of dumping garbage on the backside of the hospital. Germs, insects and bad smell from the dump penetrate into the hospital and pose great risk to the health of patients, visitors, doctors and staff, besides disturbing all, they added.

This 260-bed hospital caters to the healthcare requirements of upper and central Sindh, parts of Punjab and Balochitan.

While visiting the hospital, one cannot avoid an encounter with clusters of houseflies making entry from a nearby garbage dump container placed by the local municipality close to its gate. Even the portion adjacent to it used for routine immunization is not spared by insects.

Prof Dr Shanti Lal, the head of the department of paediatrics, said that malaria had attained an alarming proportion as every third child is suffering from this illness. “In the month of August along, as many as1,828 suspected cases of malaria were tested and of them 312 (or 17pc) were diagnosed as positive, he added.

Cases of gastroenteritis, dysentery, enteric fever, infective hepatitis and skin diseases were common in the patients reporting in the post-rain situation. We are also getting cases of snakebite, he said, which according to him, were on the rise nowadays.

Cases of malnutrition and severe asthma were also pouring in with a higher number, he added.

Managing the workload

Owing to the increased load of patients, the hospital management would frequently ask postgraduate candidates to work as medico-legal officers or serve in the casualty department, which is quite uncalled for, he said. “It sounds strange that a candidate trained in paediatrics is posted in both departments for a specified period which in turn adversely affects work in the Children Hospital,” he said. The matter was conveyed to the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University vice chancellor, who had asked the CMCH medical superintendent to sort it out but in vain, he added. This practice must stop, Prof Shanti Lal stressed.

The issue of malnutrition, particularly in expecting mothers and children, was quite worrisome, he said.

Dr Farooque Illahi Indhar, doing his post-graduation, said that till the end of July, we had received around 4,000 cases of diarrhea. He said cases of malaria were in a big number followed by dysentery, enteric fever and skin diseases in IDPs whereas malnutrition in both mother and child was also common.

Prof Shanti Lal said the OPD of this hospital is bigger than those of NICH Hyderabad and Sukkur “but our faculty is very frequently transferred and detailed to work in unrelated departments, which should not happen”.

The resident medical officer of the Children Hospital, Dr Hassan Chandio, said that last month, this hospital received 47,038 patients and of them 13,504 were admitted.

He said the average OPD turnout in the hospital is around 2,000 daily and most of the patients were from IDP families.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2022