SIALKOT
Patients are referred to health facilities in Lahore, Islamabad and other main cities for treatment as no public sector hospital including two DHQ hospitals have burn unit facility across Sialkot district.
Sialkot, which comprises over 4.4 million people, has an international-standard medical college namely Kh Muhammad Safdar Medical College, two DHQ teaching hospitals namely Govt Allama Iqbal Memorial DHQ Teaching Hospital and Govt Sardar Begum Memorial DHQ Teaching Hospital, three THQ civil hospitals at Daska, Sambrial and Pasrur tehsils. But no burn unit has so far been established across the district for providing emergency medical treatment to burnt patients.
As they have to travel for hours to reach the big cities hospitals, most of them succumb to their severe burn wounds before getting medical treatment.
Sialkot District Coordination Officer (DCO) Dr Asif Tufail visited the both of these DHQ/teaching hospitals of Sialkot following the mounted complaints by the indoor and outdoor patients there. The Punjab government had been spending billions of rupees on the establishment of the grand building of Kh Muhammad Safdar Medical College at Sialkot, but it remained unable to allocate even a single penny for establishing any burn unit in any of the DHQ hospitals which work under the supervision of Kh Muhammad Safdar Medical College.
In 2002, then district nazim of Sialkot Mian Naeem Javaid had approved a project to establish a well-equipped burn unit at Govt Allama Iqbal Memorial DHQ Hospital but it could not be established due to the non availability of funds. Since then, no one had ever felt the need of establishing burn unit at Sialkot despite knowing the fact.
Local social, political, business, medical and religious circles have expressed grave concern over the nasty situation. They urged Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and others to look into the matter and ensure early establishment of burn units at Sialkot hospitals.
In addition, Daska THQ Civil Sialkot had also been lacking the trauma centre. The hospital management said that a case had been sent to the Punjab government for final approval of establishing a well-equipped trauma center at Daska Civil Hospital besides the allocation of the funds. Reportedly, the injured persons , the victims of the fatal roads accidents, occurred on main Sialkot-Daska-Gujranwala Road and main Daska-Pasrur Road, are usually referred to Gujranwala of Lahore hospitals from Daska Civil Hospital due to prolonged non-availability of trauma centre.
Lawyers Aliya Hina, Ghazala Adnan Bhatti, Lala Mubashar Butt, Mian Ghulam Farooq, Saleem Ahmed Sheikhu, Mian Ghulam Farooq, Syed Habibul Hassan and Adnan Dar and social, political, business, medical and religious circles have expressed grave concern over the situation. They urged the Punjab government to ensure early establishment of a burn unit at Sialkot.
When contacted, Kh Muhammad Safdar Medical College Principal Ali Chaudhry said that the situation was in his notice and efforts were underway to establish a burn unit in Sialkot