To cope with the growing number of cardio-vascular patients, the management of National Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases (NICVD) has decided to examine the patients in the afternoon as well. The outpatient department would now remain open throughout the day to attend to the patients who visit the hospital.
NICVD has also decided to import two new angiogram machines as the existing equipment is not enough to meet the large number of cases who need immediate attention and treatment.
In an interview with Business Recorder on Tuesday, Executive Director, National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) Professor Dr Asadullah Kundi said that 2,000 local and 600 serious patients belonging to far-flung areas of Sindh visit NICVD on a daily basis.
He said that it is a public sector hospital where deserving people of the society are provided with medical and surgical facilities and it is impossible to check every patient in a day. Even few amongst them could not achieve appointment date from doctors, he added.
He accepted that there is a shortage of doctors and other paramedical staff in NICVD due to which the situation is worsening by each passing day. A doctor checks at least 30 cardiac patients in a day while others were given dates for medical check-up, he said.
He said that it is a reality that available machines are not sufficient to provide patients with health facilities and for this purpose the administration of NICVD is working on a proposal to import 2 more new angiogram machines to facilitate the patients of angiography.
He further said that increase in cardiac patients and shortage of cardio-vascular institutes in the metropolis, the people are forced to visit NICVD due to which the workload of paramedical staff has been increased. He said that we have about 380 sanctioned beds in different wards for in-house patients, but have to accommodate more than 400 patients in the space available in the wards and corridors due to patients' "demand".
He said that NICVD is receiving around 100,000 patients in its emergency department, while another 400,000 patients were provided with necessary medical and surgical attention in the outpatient (OPD) department of the health facility.
He said that the patients with heart attacks are brought into Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and these patients, depending on the situation, need at least 48 hours to stay but they could not be facilitated properly due to increase in the number of patients and limited resources.
He said that there is a capacity of 49 beds in one ward but the administration of the hospital arranged few more beds, which are placed in corridors to ensure treatment to maximum number of cardiac patients. He noted that both the government and the private sector should make efforts jointly for developing big multi-disciplinary health centres throughout the province with special consideration for cardio-vascular units.
He also demanded of the government to provide them with para-medical staff and necessary machines because available machines could not meet the requirements of cardiac patients in future.
Meanwhile, the people standing in queue for getting appointment date from doctors alleged that they come daily to get appointment date from doctors but they could not get the appointment because of heavy mess in OPD. The doctors favour those having references of some people for early medical examination, they said.
The attendants of some patients charged that they belong to far-flung areas of Sindh and came to this institute for medical examination but they are forced to pass nights on footpaths and in parking lots of institute as the administration of NICVD banned the entry of more than one attendant in the institute.