Health delivery system in KP deteriorating, observes PHC Chief Justice

Says main hospitals lack basic facilities

PESHAWAR: Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court (PHC) Mazhar Alam Miankhel observed on Tuesday that the health delivery system in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was deteriorating as the main hospitals lacked basic facilities.

“I personally observed in one of the three main hospitals where even a tape of cotton was not available for a patient after receiving an injection. The patient was asked to press it with his finger to stop the blood,” the chief justice recalled.

He pointed out that heart patients were being put on several months long waiting list for urgently needed surgeries in the Lady Reading Hospital. He said the poor patients are compelled to turn to private hospitals for the purpose. He wondered where to the health system in the province was heading.

The PHC chief justice made these observations in a writ petition filed by senior Supreme Court lawyer Muhammad Essa Khan against the Hayatabad Medical Complex administration for not repairing the out-of-order CT scan and MRI machines in the hospital.

During the previous hearing, the PHC had issued directives to the hospital administration to repair the dysfunctional machines including CT scan and MRI on an urgent bases.On that occasion, the legal advisor of HMC, Muhammad Shakeel submitted before a division bench comprising chief justice and Justice Lal Jan Khattak that the court orders were complied with and new CT scan and MRI machines had been installed in the hospital and were being used to examine the patients.

However, the court observed that these machines had been installed but even then patients were compelled to do these expensive tests from private institutions. The court directed the legal advisor of the hospital to produce at the next hearing the patients’ examination record from the date of installation of the machines to-date. 

Muhammad Essa Khan, a former president of PHC Bar Association, and Akhtar Ilyas, a member of the bar, had filed the writ petition. They made the provincial government through secretary health, director general health, HMC chief executive, the medical superintendent and the National Accountability Bureau head as respondents in the case.

The petitioners stated that the machines at the HMC were out-of-order and the patients were constrained to turn to private CT scan and MRI machines for the tests. They said millions of rupees were released by the interim government in 2013 for the repair of the above-mentioned machines and installation of new ones, but the task was never accomplished.

The petitioners said being citizens of this country they had every right to inquire about the disbursement and spending of the money.In the interim relief, the petitioners prayed the court to direct the respondents to repair the existing CT scan, MRI and other machines and install new ones within a period of three months to facilitate the needy patients at the HMC.