LARKANA, Oct 19: Lack of equipment and shortage of doctors and paramedics at the Chandka Medical College Children Hospital have contributed to an increase in mortality rate at the hospital.

This was said by the head of pediatrics department, Chandka Medical College Hospital, Professor Khursheed Abbasi, while talking to this correspondent.

Patients requiring facilities like ventilators were referred to the National Institute of Child Health, Karachi, as neo-natal intensive care unit at the hospital was short of equipment, he said.

He said that some patients died during the process of shifting and many others could not afford to go to Karachi, thus adding to the morality rate in Larkana.

The children hospital was constructed in 1976 with the capacity of only 40 patients but now it accommodated 120, he said, adding that there were 16 regular doctors and seven house officers at the hospital.

The shortage had put lot of burden on the doctors as they not only tended to in-house patients but also performed duties in out-patient department, he said and called for doubling the strength.

The hospital direly needed another 35 paramedics, he said, adding that at times instead of staff nurses, student nurses took care of patients at neonatology ward. “The hospital lacks ventilator and only two incubators out of six are operative,” he said

Professor Abbasi said that he had repeatedly approached the medical superintendent of the CMCH and the principal of the CMC, who was also chairman of the hospital management committee, for a ventilator and more incubators but in vain. The scenario was likely to increase death ratio at the hospital to make situation difficult for all concerned, he said. The load of admissions had increased due to population growth and lack of tertiary hospitals in the area, he added.

Death ratio in the neonatology ward here was 25 per cent and in Islamabad and Karachi hospitals it was 20 per cent, he said. Many deaths occurred due to cross infection because they, at times, were compelled to keep 40 patients instead of 10, the capacity of the ward, he said.

The only children hospital in Larkana received majority of diarrhea, typhoid, pneumonia and malaria cases and only 25 per cent of mixed infection, Dr Abbasi said.