ISLAMABAD - Burn patients rush to Burn Care Centre, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), to avoid extreme suffering and intense pain because of non-specialist health facilities in burn care in the country; however in Pims too, the treatment is delayed and patients endure suffering and distress as the state-of-the-art centre has been functional without anaesthetist for the last five years.
Hifsa, who was burnt accidentally when a pot of boiling water spilt on her leg, has been under treatment at Burn Care Centre (BCC), PIMS, for the last two months but could not be operated despite giving date by the BCC administration.
She missed her annual Class VIII exams as she was given time for operation but after waiting for the whole day the BCC staff discharged her and admitted another patient, her father complained. He alleged that during the strike at the hospital she was getting treatment from a private clinic and now again the doctors ask him to go to some private clinic. He lamented that he can afford to visit the hospital from a far-flung village of Rawalpindi daily but the exercise can put in trouble those who do not have resources to visit the hospital time and again from AJK, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and various cities of Punjab.
Another attendant of a patient, who was burnt in a domestic accident, said the hospital has discharged the patient but his condition is not stable yet and they are trying to keep him admitted for a few more days.
BCC officials say they have to give preference to critical patients and patients with minor injuries will have to wait for their turn due to burden of patients and shortage of staff and anaesthetists.
Professor Dr Tariq Iqbal, Head of BCC said, “We can operate only for two days and for that also we request to PIMS administration to send an anaesthetist as the centre has not any anaesthetist on its strength since its inception.”
Inaugurated in December 2007, the BCC is the first of its kind in the public sector of Pakistan and rather in South Asia that has been established in accordance with the international standards for the management of acute burn care and long-term sequel. He said the Centre has treated about 30,000 burn patients free of cost and the mortality rate has been less than 10 per cent.
He said the Centre has shown good results with 120 staff members and without any anaesthetist. According to him five posts of anaesthetists were advertised four times but no application was received. He was of the view that overall there is dearth of anaesthetists and it’s hard to retain them in the country also when they are offered hefty packages in developed countries.
He said the 20-bedded Centre cannot entertain the patients from across the country and after the 18th Amendment the provincial government should build burn centres in the provinces, as health has become a provincial subject. He urged the need to build burn centre at least in all major cities so that the patients do not bear the pain to travel to capital from every nook and corner of the country for treatment.  
The cost of burn care is enormous and no hospital treats the burn patients with such state of the art facilities and free of cost so the patients from across the country rush to the burn centre of PIMS, he explained.
Burn victim’s mortality rate in Pakistan is beyond proportion when compared with other countries due to inadequate facilities for the management of burns patients in the existing public and private sectors hospitals.
Under defence budget, there are burns centres at CMH Kharian, NESCOM Islamabad and POF Wah, where mostly the beneficiaries are defence personal and few civil patients who can afford heavy expenses of treatment cost.