Lack of cleanliness: patients, medical staff drinking polluted water in city's hospitals

Underground water tanks and overhead reservoirs in public sector hospitals of Karachi are not properly cleaned for several months by the administrations hence visiting patients are compelled to drink the contaminated water in healthcares. An official at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre told the PPI that underground water reservoirs of healthcare had not been cleaned by the hospital administration for past several months, as a result, visiting patients had been compelled to drink polluted water.
He said that over 4000 patients from Karachi, interior Sindh and Balochistan province visit different OPDs of the hospital every day but visiting patients and their attendants had been compelled to drink polluted water of underground water reservoirs. "Although hospital administration has established an RO plant to ensure provision of clean water to patients and staff but one plant is not enough for hundreds of patients," he said adding that patients and their attendants were using mineral water to avoid water-borne diseases. He said contaminated water was also supplied to various departments of the JPMC.
Apart from the JPMC, overhead tanks and underground reservoirs in Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Civil Hospital, Services Hospital, National Institute of Child Health, National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and other facilities have neither been maintained nor cleaned for several months due to apathy and slackness of heads of those healthcare institutions.
A doctor of the Civil Hospital who wished not be named, disclosed that consumption of contaminated and polluted water could cause water-borne diseases among patients and their attendants. He demanded of the provincial health department and the KMC authorities to ensure cleanliness of underground water reservoirs and overhead tanks in every three month in public sector hospitals to prevent patients from contracting diseases.
Heads of other major hospitals of Karachi, including Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Services Hospital Karachi, National Institute of Child Health, and National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases have also not maintained the water reservoirs on regular basis.