PESHAWAR: Frequent bomb blasts and militant attacks have resulted in a dire need to establish separate trauma centres at all teaching hospitals in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).
The newly-appointed chief executive officer of the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) Dr Inayat Shah Roghani told The Express Tribune a separate trauma centre will be established soon, which would not only provide adequate treatment to blast victims, but would also prevent other patients from being inconvenienced.
“The new centre will decrease the extra burden on the emergency unit and will also provide timely treatment to victims of militant attacks.”
Public hospitals have been under exceptional burden in the past few weeks as the city braved three major terrorist attacks in the last week of September.
Roghani said in-patients, who are not among injured victims of terrorist attacks, face considerable difficulties when victims of militant attacks are moved to other wards in emergency situations. After the All Saints’ Church bombing, patients already admitted at the Lady Health Hospital of the emergency ward had to be moved to the dengue ward, as space ran out for the high number of casualties.
The current level of staffers is not enough to manage the daily operations at the KTH, he said and demanded the government to recruit new staff to cater to patients at the hospital.
The KTH catered to a population of 300,000 people when it was established in 1975. The same building and facilities are now being used to treat 3.6 million people.
The hospital provides treatment to residents of K-P, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and even Afghanistan, Roghani said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2013.
