Demise of infant reveals reality of treatment options in Punjab

A minor girl from Okara lost her life due to burn injuries and sadly there was no hospital where she could be treated on time. In the largest and most populous province of the country, where fire accidents are almost routine, no such health facility for burn victims exists. The family of the deceased girl Aleeza has blamed various hospitals in Lahore for refusing her treatment due to which she succumbed to her wounds on October 25.

Aleeza suffered burn injuries in her house after a pot of boiled water fell on her a week before her death. Her father Sajid Tanvir immediately took her to District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Okara for emergency treatment but the hospital administration conveniently ignored her plight. Reportedly, the infant girl kept crying in pain all night.

“I kept applying ointments on her wounds that gave her some kind of relief but now she has been liberated from her sufferings forever,” Tanvir said with teary eyes.

He blamed the ‘indifferent’ attitude of the hospital administration which had forced him to take his daughter back. “If I was to give her treatment at the hospital, I thought, it was better to treat her at home.”

The next day, according to Tanvir, a friend of his father who was a doctor at DHQ, advised him to take her daughter to the hospital for treatment as the burn injuries were a matter of great concern and required immediate medical help.

When the father of the minor girl took Aleeza to the DHQ, she got admitted but again the care and facilities were not enough for burn victims.

“I requested the DHQ authorities to refer her to a hospital in Lahore where she would get better healthcare facilities. The hospital referred us to Children’s Hospital in Lahore.”

The victim’s family reached the provincial capital in a Rescue 1122 ambulance the same night, on October 19.

To their surprise, Children’s Hospital told the family that they have no burns unit at the hospital and referred her to Jinnah Hospital.

Abdul Waheed, the uncle of deceased Aleeza, said that when they reached Jinnah hospital, they were told that this hospital too did not deal with young patients rather they only treat adults.

He also said that they kept on begging the hospital management but they refused to admit the girl and referred her to Mayo Hospital. It was around 4 am. Aleeza was admitted to Mayo Hospital where she was given treatment in the emergency of the burns unit.

According to Abdul Waheed, they had requested hospital administration to refer them to the burns centre at Kharian which the hospital turned down.

“On Monday, the hospital authorities asked us to go to Kharian and as we were preparing, we were again told not to go there as the centre had stated that they will admit the minor girl only after her condition stabilised.”

Aleeza, according to Waheed, died on Tuesday morning at the Mayo hospital. “Had Aleeza been provided treatment in time, her life might have been saved,” he regretted.

Some questions will remain unanswered such as why she was not referred to the hospital concerned in the first place and why each hospital kept on referring them from one hospital to another and denied her treatment.

According to Dr Mustehsan Bashir, head of the Plastic Surgery Department at Mayo hospital, burns units are only operating in Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad but not a single hospital other than Mayo can deal with such patients under one roof.

“Jinnah hospital only deals with adult patients and we don’t have a single designated burns unit for minors in the province.”

Dr Mustehsan said a patient with deep burn wounds like Aleeza needed timely treatment but she was admitted to Mayo two days after the incident. To a query, the head of the plastic surgery department said skin grafting and surgeries are costly as the skin has to be imported for this purpose.

“We need to establish a skin bank where people could donate their skins after death. Unfortunately, there is no such concept here in Pakistan due to which treatment of burn injuries becomes more expensive.”

Sometimes, Dr Bashir said, the budget of a district hospital is required to treat burned patients. “The government should establish at least three state-of-the-art burn centres in Punjab equipped with the latest equipment under one roof.”

To another question, the doctor said Mayo Hospital deals with 70 to 80 patients a month including minors and the survival ratio in burn injuries is around 65 per cent. He also said the survival of half-burnt patients decreases to 50 per cent.

Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said a state-of-the-art burns centre is being established by her government at the Children’s Hospital. She further said minor patients would be treated there as Jinnah was taking care of adult patients. “We’re also enhancing the capacity of Jinnah so that it could also treat up to 10 minor patients at a time.”