She said that this maternity home was a result of community contributions and as soon as it was completed, every political and religious party made attempts to get hold of this place to use it for its activities. At last, it was decided to be used as a maternity home.

Following its opening, a large number of staff was appointed here comprising 11 doctors and four lady health visitors.

However, all left one by one due to security reasons and also because there wasn’t much work, she said.

‘No govt support’

When efforts to seek government support in raising a boundary wall failed, a trust came to our rescue, Dr Waseem said.

She said that the trust not only helped in erecting the boundary wall and iron fences etc, it also donated trees which you could still be seen flourishing.

The same trust built an operation theatre in 1999. With an operation table and lights donated by the trust and instruments handed over by the defunct KMC administration, the operation theatre started functioning till it had to be closed down in 2005 due to shortage of staff.

Dr Waseem said that the main hindrance in the smooth functioning of the facility was the absence of regular staff as all of them were on deputation.

“Though the maternity home is under the city government, there are some employees who have come from the Sindh government. They leave as their period is over or get themselves transferred. The construction which had started in ’95 for residence quarters is still incomplete,” she deplored. According to Dr Waseem, this is the only maternity home without residential facilities in the East zone.

Despite presence of ample staff comprising three doctors, five nurses, a midwife and three ayas, on average five deliveries are carried out in a month. Two doctors only attend to the patients of general out-patient department and leave by 2pm.

“Women do come regularly for antenatal checkups but avoid deliveries here. One reason is the misconception that only a doctor is capable of handling deliveries and services are not good at government setups”, adds Dr Waseem.

A staff at the maternity home, however, revealed that the doctors encouraged women to come to their private clinics for deliveries.

According to a staff nurse, Parveen Wilson, apart from high risk cases, first delivery cases are also not attended as the chances of developing complications are high in such cases. Complicated cases are referred to Civil and Jinnah hospitals.

‘Abortion cases high’

There are no diagnostic facilities though an X-ray room exists. Also, there are many rooms in the facility which are either empty, locked or being used as store rooms. There is no ambulance, but a post of driver exists who works as a watchman and at times replaced by naib qasid.

Along with a separate facility for childcare, there is also a section for family planning service. According to Dr Wasim, the number of women seeking abortion is high. “Three to four women come to us everyday for abortion. We do encourage child spacing but advice women not to go for abortion as it can be harmful to their health,” she said.