Karak doctors disappear with sunset, complain residents

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By Mahmood Iqbal

PESHAWAR, June 27: All government-run health units, including the District Headquarters Hospital, in the relatively peaceful Karak district shut doors on patients after the sun sets and no doctor, except a few God fearing health workers, is available to attend the emergency cases, complain patients and residents.
Relatives of a young representative of a pharmaceutical company, Rashid Manzoor, who suffered high fever, said that they brought the patient to the DHQ hospital in KDA Township unconscious, but there was no doctor to see to the patient.

“Only three persons were present in the emergency ward when we brought in the patient. We asked them about the doctor on duty, and one of them, identified as Hidayatullah, replied that he was the doctor on call,” said the relatives. They added that the man posing as the doctor was actually a dispenser and he gave an injection to the pa tient and told them to take the patient to the old DHQ hospital and get him checked from Dr Zafar Iqbal or Dr Gul Shehzad.

Rashid Manzoor’s relatives said that before they went to the DHQ hospital emergency, they were told by staffers at a private clinic to get the patient checked from Dr Rizwan in the DHQ hospital’s doctors’ hostel.

“When we went to the doctors’ hostel, we found that the entire hostel has been turned into a residential quarter where a woman rebuked us for entering the house without permission,” said the patient’s relatives.

They added that they waited for the doctor for some time, but one of his relatives told them they should see the doctor on duty in the emergency ward opposite the doctors’ hostel.

“As we approached the emergency ward, we found the three men and a woman in a suspicious condition and one of them posing as the doctor in Shalwar Qameez of different colours told us to bring in the patient,” they said. After giving an injection to the patient, the man, who turned out to be a dispenser, told the patient’s relatives that they should take him to the old DHQ hospital to see a doctor.

They said that at the old hospital, they had to suffer a long wait but no doctor bothered to come out from the house situated on the premises of the old hospital. “We also exchanged harsh words with the doctor’s servant when he told us after a long time that Dr Zafar Iqbal would not see the patient at this hour of the night,” they added.

Later, as the patient was unconscious, the relatives took him to the old hospital’s emergency ward where Dr Shah Jee was on duty. The two paramedics on duty called Dr Shah Jee by the telephone and told him about the patient and he was kind enough to rush from his home to the emergency ward, they said.

“But Dr Zafar Iqbal and Dr Gul Shehzad, who occupy spacious bungalows on the old hospital’s premises, did not come out to see the patient after making us wait for a long time in sweltering heat,” the patient’s relatives said.

The medical superintendent of DHQ hospital, Dr Laal Sharaf, when approached for comment said that as he had taken the charge only recently he would take action against the imposter doctor and the doctor who was on duty in the emergency ward on Thursday night.

Officials in the office of executive district officer (health) said that the situation at the government-run hospitals and healthcare facilities was so bad that no doctor or other health professional would attend emergency cases after the evening sets in.

Private health workers running medicine stores in different villages of the district said that God forbid if some body had a medical emergency after evening. “You would find a stray dog in the hospitals of the district at night,” they said.

The owner of a private clinic in a village told this scribe that on Thursday night relatives of a woman, who suffered 70 per cent burns while lighting a kerosene lamp in her house, was brought to him as they knew that they would not find any doctor in the district’s hospitals.

“They could not take her to Bannu, where curfew is imposed, nor could they go to Kohat for lack of security on the road. They knew well that no doctor despite staying either on the hospital’s premises or the doctors’ hostels would bother to see the patient,” said the clinic owner.

“After washing her burns and giving her all possible treatment for nearly three hours, the condition of the woman got stabilised and she was taken back to her house only to be brought again to the clinic in the morning,” said the health worker.

Villagers complained that they had got sick of the doctors’ attitude in the new DHQ hospital as well as in the old hospital. “Their attitude is no problem when we are in trouble, but they would not treat the patients, who may either die of pain during the night or could be taken to some other hospital in the morning,” they added.

Staffers at the DHQ hospital in KDA Township when asked by telephone about the absence of a doctor in the emergency ward said that they would bring the matter into the notice of the medical superintendent and ask him to take disciplinary action against the dispenser who posed a doctor on duty in the emergency ward.

“The doctors avail all kinds of facilities and have turned the doctors’ hostel into a family property, but they ignore the patients at night and leave them at the mercy of God,” said junior health workers in the hospital.