Rawalpindi - The management of Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) has given 10 ICU beds to the Paediatric Department in order to provide adequate medical treatment to critically sick children in the Intensive Care Unit informed sources on Tuesday. The beds were provided to Paediatric Department on the directions of Commissioner Rawalpindi Division Saif Anjum and Deputy Commissioner Dr Umer Jahangir, they said. According to sources, the management of BBH has provided 10 ICU beds equipped with back X-Ray rest to the doctors of Paediatric Department to facilitate the minor patients. They said Commissioner and DC had earlier taken notice of the issue of not providing ICU beds to the Paediatric Department of BBH by the management. The doctors and the patients have thanked the Commissioner and DC for providing them with 10 ICU beds.

It may be noted that the management of BBH had purchased 10 ICU beds from a local supplier Spectrums Technologies (Pvt) Limited, near Al-Shifa Eyes Trust, Jhelum Road in 2016 as per Paediatric Department Annual Development Scheme 2016. The delivery of consignment was made by the supplier to BBH administration on 8th July 2017 and the beds were kept in a store room of the hospital.

The beds were inspected by the Bio Medical Engineer on 11th July 2017, who approved the beds. However, the inspection committee of the hospital again inspected the beds on August 29, 2017 and found that the back rest X-Ray translucent was missing in the beds.

The inspection committee, later on, barred the management from providing these ICU beds to the Paediatric Department besides instructing to ask the company to make arrangements to fix replace the missing equipment.

The BBH management had dumped the beds in a store room instead of returning them to a supplier. The non provision of beds to the Paediatric Department has not only endangered the lives of sick children in the ICU but also increased mortality rate in the Paediatric Department.

The DC had also ordered to hold an inquiry against the management of BBH for showing negligence and not returning the faulty ICU beds to the supplier in time and causing 3.4 million worth of loss to the national exchequer.