PESHAWAR - The inquiry committee of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) on Monday suspended at least nine employees over death of six patients due to lack of oxygen supply.
The KTH Chairman and Board of Governors took a serious notice of the deaths of patients in the Covid Isolation Ward and one patient in ICU on early Sunday.
An emergency meeting was called with the hospital administration and a preliminary fact finding committee was constituted which later released the initial report of the incident. The inquiry committee held its meeting under the Chairmanship of Prof Dr Nadeem Kawar, two board members Dr Nadeem Alam and Sabur Sethi also attended the meeting.
The inquiry committee in its initial report on available relevant documentary, verbal and written statements/record took action and suspended nine employees including Dr Tahir Nadeem Khan, hospital director, Tahir Shahzad , facility manager, Ali Waqas, Manger Supply Chain, Bilal Bajaj, biomedical engineer, Nimat , oxygen plant assistant, Waheed, oxygen plant duty employee, Shahzad Akbar, Oxygen plant duty employee.
The hospital administration also decided that qualified and trained staff would be hired for oxygen plant and the primary and secondary backup system for the oxygen plant will be established on emergency basis besides proper command and control system of oxygen supply.
Also, proper emergency rescue squad will be organised for the hospital and regular drills to be carried out for better preparedness in future. Similarly, the standard of Pakistan Oxygen Limited (contractor) monitoring and supply system will be further investigated.
The inquiry committee concluded that the incident took place due to system failure, chronic deficient oxygen filling of the tank which went unnoticed, unsupervised and unchecked. The committee finds that there was no backup of oxygen storage supply system in the hospital as recommended by technical committee. The facilities management failed to report the absent staff of the oxygen plant and the supply chain department failed to provide the required number of oxygen flow meters for the oxygen cylinders.
The hospital had no emergency rescue squad while oxygen plant staff needs further training and skills enhancement. Also the biomedical engineer failed to perform his duties.