DERA GHAZI KHAN-The Basic Health Unit (BHU) Gaddai is in miserable condition for many years and also lacks even basic facilities and medicines.
Over 40,000 people of Gaddai Town and its adjoining areas have been demanding proper healthcare in the hospital for years but to no avail. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) DG Khan has also recommended legal action against WMO for the violation of Hospital Waste Management Rules (HWMR) -2014.
The dilapidated building and defective electric power transformer are some of the failures of management of Punjab Health Facilities Management Company (PHFMC) and District Health Authority (DHA). The health authorities posted a women medical officer Dr Misbah Jamil as In-charge but she remained either absent or disappear during duty timings which causes problems for the patients. Moreover, she does not check the the male patients, therefore the medical technician attends the male patients in the hospital. No male medical officer has so far been posted in the hospital.
The only labour room of unit presents a picture of trash bin and the rest of structure is in a shambles. Eight residential houses are in dilapidated condition with broken doors and shatter windowpanes tell another sorry state of affairs. Moreover, the unit lacks ultrasound machine, lab, and an ambulance. Even the hospital has no boundary wall as well as evening and night shifts. Its washrooms remain locked for the patients. Some open plots of the hospital are being illegally used for farming.
Also the staff faces hardship to maintain the proper refrigerator for costly vaccines due to defective transformer which mostly remains faulty.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) DG Khan has issued many notices to In-charge Misbah Jameel for properly implementation of Hospital Waste Management Rules 2014 but she does not take it seriously.
As per inspection reports of EPA, the woman medical officer has failed to ensure compliance of HWMR-2017. The hospital waste is not being properly collected, segregated and transported under prescribed SOPs. Incinerator for proper disposal of risk waste is not available at hospital. Syringes, needles, plastic bottles, drips and infusion bags are not being cut or break at the point of use by person using them.
A local patient Allah Bakhsh complained that medicines of ENT, asthma, cough and skin diseases remain mostly short at the hospital. He said he had to buy the medicine from private medical store.
When contacted, CEO Health Dr Khalil Ahmed said that all the residential colonies located in all BHUs across the district are in dilapidated conditions. To a question, he said these houses are useless because officials have no demand to reside. However, construction of boundary wall is underway under the building department, he said.