Doctors have demanded that load-shedding at public hospitals be ended as power outages are delaying important operations and restricting the provision of medical services to the poor.
Dozens of scheduled operations at public hospitals have had to be delayed in the last few days, including some 60 at Jinnah Hospital alone.
“At Jinnah Hospital there was no electricity for eight hours on Sunday and for one hour on Monday,” said Dr Javaid Aheer, president of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab.
“The generators could supply electricity to just a few areas while several departments remained without electricity. Dozens of serious operations were cancelled and postponed as there was no electricity at the hospital. There wasn’t a drop of water in the operation theatres and hostels as well,” said Dr Aheer.
He said that doctors and patients had protested at the medical superintendent’s office. “The YDA demands that hospitals be provided with an uninterrupted supply of electricity. If the CM’s Secretariat and Governor’ House can be declared load shedding free zones, then why can’t hospitals where poor patients are being treated?”
The YDA Punjab is to stage a protest against the load shedding at Jinnah Hospital on Tuesday.
Another doctor at Jinnah’s Hospital said that patients on ventilators were particularly vulnerable. “When the electricity goes off, it could result in their deaths,” said Dr Shabbir Chaudhry. “The delaying of operations is another serious consequence. This needs to be addressed immediately.”
He said that the Lahore High Court had ordered that there should be no load shedding at public hospitals and the Lahore Electricity Supply Company should follow the order.
At the Punjab Dental Hospital, the only dental hospital in Lahore, electricity outages have meant that they have been unable to sterilise medical equipment, said a doctor there. “The hospital is open for six hours a day. For three hours, there is no light, due to which hundreds of patients are being denied treatment.”
A doctor at Mayo Hospital, the largest public hospital in the country, said long power outages had resulted in many operations being delayed, as well as a water shortage. “There is an acute shortage of water even in operation theatres. How can you run hospitals this way?”
There are similar problems at Lady Willingdon Hospital. “There has been no water in the washrooms for two days,” a doctor there said. “The fans and air conditioners are not working. A doctor got gastroenteritis yesterday after she ate food from the canteen. The authorities must act at once or the situations could get worse and affect many more patients.”
Published in The Express Tribune, May 21st, 2013.