SKARDU, Jan 8: The district headquarters hospital (DHQ) here serves over 0.3 million population two districts of Baltistan — Skardu and Ghanche — but does not have sufficient facilities even for Skardu population. The hospital has no heating in the freezing winter nights, no medicines to speak of, no specialists and the present strength of doctors is absolutely inadequate for the indoor and outdoor patients.

Women are the worst sufferers due to lack of gynaecologists. There have been fatal cases among pregnant women. Although a lady gynaecologist was transferred here from Khaplu last year on great demand of the people of Skardu, but as she is not available on all hours women patients are at times faced with difficult situations in which unless they rely on the services of untrained nurses they have to get help from male doctors.

In the severe cold of winter season patients remain exposed to respiratory troubles in addition to whatever other disease they may be suffering from. During a visit to the hospital, this scribe saw patients in the female ward shivering with cold while male patients were warming themselves with their own Fujika heaters. Although there was a large kerosene heater in the women’s ward but it was cold as there was no kerosene oil in the tank. An attendant alleged that the ward staff stole the kerosene oil and the heater was lighted up only when the doctors came on the round. Similar complaints were also received from the male ward.

A few years ago the hospital administration had installed a central heating plant in the hospital at huge expenditure but soon thereafter the plant became unserviceable and has since been shut down. Now kerosene oil in the different wards is ‘rationed” according to hospital sources.

Some patients also complained about the doctors’ inattentive and indifferent attitude. Most of the doctors serving in the hospital had their own clinics where patients got better service with a welcoming smile compared to the hospital where the same doctors treated them rudely. Patients needing surgery were given late appointments for operations on the pretext of rush of surgical cases while the lower staff advised patients or their attendants to get the operation done quickly in the private surgeries where they had part time work. The surgeons paid them commission for bringing in hospital cases.

Duty medical officers (DMO) also paid little or casual attention to the care of the patients admitted in the hospital and most of the times watched TV in their offices. “My mother was admitted in the hospital last month. When I went to see her, she was not feeling well. I tried to bring her condition to the notice of the DMO but I was stopped at the door by his assistant. I managed to get inside the DMO’s room and requested him to examine my mother, but the DMO did not bother to visit my mother who was in serious condition and sent a junior nurse for her check up,” Ghulam Abbas who was attending on her mother complained.

The DHQ hospital has no bone surgeon to attend even minor cases of fractures that are common in a mountainous terrain. The one who attends to such cases is a part time consultant at a private clinic. He advises people to go to that particular clinic as the Skardu hospital was not adequately equipped for that kind of surgery. Since the alternative is shifting the patient to Rawalpindi or Islamabad, the private surgery remains in good business.

Mohammad Nazir, a resident of Skardu, said his son fractured his arm last year. He showed him to the said surgeon in the hospital who told him to bring his son to the hospital next day. But next day when his son was taken into the operation theatre he was soon brought out in an unconscious condition. The doctor told him that his son needed a rod to be put in his arm but since that was not available in the hospital either his son should be taken to the private surgery or shifted to Rawalpindi or Islamabad.

Mr Nazir said, since his son’s early treatment was very important for him he had no option but to get him operated in the clinic where the surgeon was working. He had to pay a heavy fee. When contacted the said surgeon said such operations needed special surgical equipment, and the hospital could not get that even in the next decade. It was not understandable how what a private clinic could afford a district headquarters hospital could not.

Inadequate supply of medicines was another story. This reporter saw a long queue of patients outside the medical store shivering in the minus 10 degree temperature. Yet the only medicines the hospital was known to have were the common pills like Ponstan and Paracetamol. All other medicines generally remained out of stock. Patients had no choice but to go to the open market and buy the needed medicines which meant the poor who had no money even to buy food had also to learn to live without medicines or master the difficult art of curing all diseases with paracetamol.

On the other hand the load of patients on the doctors was too much since they serve patients from two districts of Skardu and Ghanche of Baltistan. A medical officer said that there were only four approved medical officers in the hospital due to which they were forced to handle about 1,000 patients daily in the out- patients department. At the same time they had to be on duty for 110 hours a week. The number of patients required at least 15 medical officers to do justice to their cases.

He further said that posts of orthopedists, skin, heart, kidney and bone specialists, physiotherapists, neurologists and psychiatrist had not been approved since the establishment of the hospital in 1973. However, four posts of lady doctors had been sanctioned in the beginning, but presently only one lady doctor was performing in place of seven needed at present.

The hospital started with 50 bed capacity 35 years back. Now it has 150 beds but the staff strength has not increased proportionately.

The matter which is worth mentioning here is the transfer of its only eye specialist, Dr Niaz Ali to Gilgit on the orders of the Northern Areas Health secretary. People are agitating against this action and have warned authorities that there could be trouble if the orders were not reversed.

It was high time government attended to the dismal state of affairs at the DHQ, Skardu. People were losing patience and this could create law and order problem at some stage.