KARACHI: Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Former Justice Maqbool Baqar during his surprise visit to Jinnah Post Medical Center (JPMC) interacted with the patients in the emergency and surgical wards. He witnessed the condition of the hospital, the pharmacy, the kitchen, and the washrooms and issued necessary directives for improvements.
Emergency: The caretaker CM on Wednesday afternoon paid a surprise visit to the JPMC where he was received by Executive Director Prof Shahid Rasool and they both visited the Emergency. The JPMC ED Prof Shahid told the CM that on average 1600 patients visit emergency every day. To a question, he informed the CM that in the morning shift, 355 patients were brought to the emergency, and most of them were of Road Traffic Accident (RTA). The CM was told that the 25 house officers, four medical officers, and eight senior doctors were working in the Emergency.
The Caretaker CM went from bed to bed in the Emergency, interacted with the patients and most of them showed satisfaction over the provision of medicines, lab tests, and timely care. However, some of the patients complained about the shortage of nurses for which the Executive Director admitted and requested the CM to grant him permission to appoint nurses and paramedical staff. The CM visited the washrooms of the emergency where he expressed his displeasure. He directed the Executive Director to improve janitorial services. “The washrooms must be kept neat and clean”, he said.
Surgical Complex: CM visited different wards in the surgical complex. He interacted with the patients and presented them with bouquets of flowers.
The Executive Director told the CM that there were 600 patients in the surgical wards. Most of the surgical cases were hernias, nose, throat, and ear surgeries, gallbladder, and road accidents.
Pharmacy: The chief minister visited the Pharmacy or Medicine store of the JMPC where he was told that three months of stocks were available. The CM checked the expiry dates of various medicines and inspected their cold storage.
Professor Shahid Rasool told the CM that his administration keeps placing the order for procurement of medicines every month so that the stock may not run out.
Kitchen and Food Complex: The chief minister on his last leg visit went to see the condition of the kitchen and food store. He inspected the stoves, cooking pots, and storage system.
The CM directed the Secretary of Health to get the uncooked and cooked food items checked from a food lab. “I want to know if the food items are expired,” he said. The CM directed the Executive director to keep fresh food items like chicken, meat, and fish stored for a few days.
The Executive Director told the CM that the food was prepared thrice in a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner, and tea in the evening for around 2200 patients daily. He added that the entire food served to the patients and even their attendants was cooked in the central kitchen.
Cyberknife: CM Justice Baqar also visited the Cyberknife and Tomotherapy facility where he witnessed a 17-year-old patient who came from KPK getting treatment for a brain tumor with Cyberknife and a 35-year-old lady getting treatment for a pelvic tumor on a tumor on Tomotherapy.
Prof. Tariq Mehmood told the CM that the facilities were run in a public-private partnership between the Sindh government and the Patient’s Aid Foundation. JPMC Karachi is the only center in the world offering absolutely such cancer treatment with such cutting-edge technologies free of charge irrespective of nationality religion ethnicity. Worldwide Per-patient cost of treatment varies from $50,000 to 90,000. So far Patients have come from 167 cities of Pakistan and also travelled from 15 countries to avail of this free facility. He also shared that in the current fiscal year, the Sindh govt has also given a grant of $4.1 to the Patients Aid Foundation to procure the latest model of Cyberknife at JPMC that would treat patients in 15 minutes instead of 90 minutes.
Prof Tariq said that in 2007, a 450-bedded twin Towers project was approved by ECNEC for $60 million, and then PM Shaukat Aziz did its groundbreaking in 2007 at Governor House Karachi but out of $60 million, the Federal Government released Rs1.4 lm only. He said that the Sindh govt in a public-private partnership with the Patient’s Aid Foundation took up this challenge and completed at a much lower cost of $35 million, including construction and equipment. It has state-of-the-art Critical care SICU and HDU facilities, which will save the life of hundreds of patients. He also shared a quick review of facts that at the time of devolution in 2011 JPMC was an 1185-bedded facility, to entertain 1.1 million patients. Today under the patronage of the Sindh government, it has now been raised to a 2208-bed facility that entertained 2.2 million patients in the year 2022. At the time of JPMC's devolution in the years 2011-12, the annual budget of JPMC was merely Rs1.4 billion while today for the current fiscal year JPMC's budget is Rs11 billion.
The CM shared his descending note as Judge against the transfer of this Hospital from the government of Sindh to the Federal Government which was appreciated by everyone and today's development at JPMC itself speaks about his visionary decision. Except for some observation, the CM was pleased to see the transformation of JPMC from 1100 to 2208-bed hospital under the provincial government in the last 11 years. He assured all support to the hospital administration for quality free health care at every public sector facility in the province of Sindh.
He also instructed Secretary Health Dr. Syed Mansoor Abbas Rizvi and Executive Director JPMC Prof. Shahid Rasul to work to create facilities for the treatment of drug addicts, especially the students, and also work on awareness against drugs in educational institutes across the province of Sindh.
Details of under construction 12-storied medical tower and 60 bedded private wards in collaboration with the Sindh government and Patient’s Aid Foundation were also discussed to cater to the ever-increasing needs of patients.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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