Without a triage

Benazir Bhutto Hospital needs the facility for speedy treatment

RAWALPINDI: Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Hospital is in desperate need of a triage facility which is creating hurdles in the speedy treatment of hundreds of patients.

The emergency ward of this major government hospital catering to the people of Rawalpindi is usually packed with patients and their relatives.  With triage, they can be easily transferred to their respective rooms in the hospital or referred to other relevant hospitals. However, this is not the case at the moment for a lot of patients.

Triage is the preliminary assessment of patients or casualties to determine the urgency and nature of treatment required.

In the absence of a triage facility, the attendants and patients keep roaming from one room to another. More importantly, the hospital doesn’t have a Neurology Department and the cases falling under it are generally referred to other government hospitals for treatment.

As it is situated at Murree Road, a major thoroughfare of the garrison city, it receives numerous cases of traffic incidents, mostly involving motorcyclists, who usually need neurology treatment after suffering head injuries. The availability of the triage facility becomes even more important to the hospital when it is already receiving many such cases daily.

Dr Faisal Shairaz, who has worked at the hospital for a few years, spoke on the importance of the triage facility and stated that thousands of patients visit the hospital daily.

“It not only caters to the patients of Rawalpindi alone but it also provides medical facilities to patients arriving from the far areas such as Azad Jammu and Kashmir, some parts of Hazara and from certain parts of Punjab situated around Rawalpindi.”

He also said that the Holy Family Hospital, another general hospital in Rawalpindi, does have this facility. “This eases the burden of too much work on doctors and it also provides speedy treatment to the patients.”

He further said that in case a patient is suffering from a heart attack, and they are in the emergency ward, then the doctor sitting at the triage would refer him to the relevant health facility ‘without wasting any time.’

He highlighted that initially, in the PC-1 space of the hospital, there was a dedicated area for this triage purpose in the hospital. “However, it couldn’t be made functional.”

photos: Mian Khursheed/Bol News

Reportedly, there is a small counter of triage in the emergency ward which, according to doctors of the hospital, is just a formality and nothing else. Dr Shairaz told Bol News that as the hospital in question provides treatment to so many patients, it desperately needs facilities which are normally required at a general hospital.

He revealed that the hospital has only 15 operational dialysis machines which may cater to 75 patients in three shifts while the rest of the patients, who are in abundance, are referred to the government or private hospitals.

Meanwhile, the Outpatient Department (OPD) of BB Hospital remained ‘paralysed’ during the past week. Young doctors boycotted the OPD operations due to the alleged misbehaviour of a senior doctor.

The hospital, also known as Rawalpindi General Hospital, is situated at Murree Road. It is a major teaching hospital offering basic specialities as well as medical services of psychiatry, orthopaedics, urology and cardiology.

It is associated with Rawalpindi Medical College. The hospital was opened as a district headquarters hospital in 1957.

As many as 4,000 patients are treated at the OPD of the hospital every day. And as doctors decided to boycott the operations of the OPD, the patients continue to face a lot of difficulties just to get treatment.

Dr Hamza Bhutta, a member of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) alleged that the head of the department of unit one at the teaching hospital was misbehaving with the postgraduate residents.

He also said that as many as 15 doctors had registered complaints after this incident. The protesting doctors had signed a petition. “But instead of taking action against the abuser, the administration transferred two postgraduate residents who were among other complainants.”

He further said that the YDA started a protest after the transfer of these doctors and kept the OPD closed for several days.

Dr Bhutta claimed that the head of the department, against whom so many doctors were complaining, used to employ tactics which even led some distressed postgraduate trainees to cry.

He elaborated that it was after the strike of doctors, for six days, that the hospital administration decided to transfer the head of the department. In addition to this, the administration cancelled the transfer of postgraduate residents after which the young doctors called off their strike.

This reporter reached out to Professor Muhammad Umar, Vice Chancellor of Rawalpindi Medical University, for his views on the matter, but he was unavailable for comment.