PESHAWAR: The Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) has closed its Gynaecology Department, the largest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for an indefinite period after its 35 staff members tested positive for coronavirus.
“It was a difficult decision to shut down the entire Gynae Department that used to provide services to patients from all over in the province,” said an official of the LRH. Besides an assistant professor, 14 trainee medical officers, three house officers, two head nurses, and other staff tested positive for Covid-19.
The closure of the Gynae Department will deprive a large number of patients from getting quality services. In KP, it is stated to be the largest and well-equipped Gynae Department with three units comprising 230 beds. Daily 350-400 patients would come to the Gynae Department for seeking treatment.
The operation theatre of the department would always be overcrowded as a large number of patients were referred to it from all over the province. The department admitted 120 patients daily for treatment. It is the busiest departments of LRH as the doctors have to facilitate 20-30 C-sections and 50-60 deliveries in 24 hours.
According to the LRH administration, the decision to shut down the Gynae Department was taken after recent investigations of gynae staff in which some of them were initially tested positive.
It was decided to conduct tests of other staff of the Gynae Department as well and it was learnt that most of them had contracted the virus. Sources in the LRH administration said that the number of infected patients was more than the officially notified.
“There are multiple theories about how the virus spread to the doctors and other staff. Some said they contracted the virus from patients brought to them in emergency and the patients either didn’t know about their disease or then kept it secret from the doctors,” said an official of the hospital administration.Pleading anonymity, he said the second theory was that non-technical staff, mostly ward orderlies and female assistants or midwives working in the Gynae Department for years had spread the virus. “Honestly speaking, there is no proper mechanism in LRH that is the largest public sector hospital in the province on how to handle coronavirus patients. The Dean, MD and HD all are helpless to make independent decisions,” said an official.
In the LRH, almost every member of the faculty is scared and going through serious mental stress these days due to a host of issues. The hospital administration is perturbed over the high mortality rate of Covid-19 patients in the hospital. It issued show-cause notices to certain doctors dealing with coronavirus patients.
“In the rest of the world, the doctors and health workers are saluted for their services to patients in this critical time. In LRH, the case is different, here the doctors are issued show-cause notices as to explain as to why mortality rate was high,” said one member of the faculty.
Pleading anonymity, he said “if some people in LRH came to know that I had spoken to you, they will immediately fire me, even though I am senior among the faculty members.” He said he had never worked in such a frustrating environment before.
“We are doctors and are supposed to treat the patients. We worked under the worst security situation by treating victims of suicide attacks and bomb explosions, but there was not frustration and mental stress that we are facing today,” said the faculty member.
Another faculty member had similar reservations. He said each of the faculty member was supposed to see 50 plus coronavirus patients in one round. Then the same person needs to do documentation of all these patients by filing numerous documents and then facing humiliation at the hands of a person who himself never touched a single patient.
“We are human beings and have certain requirements. Would you believe, I worked for 10 hours nonstop and even missed prayers. For the Iftar, I had to get some food from the canteen and ate out surrounded by patients, most of them Covid-19,” said the faculty member. He said there were around 200 clerks but they were not supposed to help the doctors with documentation.
Also, according to the faculty members, one major reason behind the high mortality rate is the lack of proper management of dealing coronavirus patients.
“Would you believe, most of the senior doctors got their names removed from duty rota of Covid-19 patients and made the trainees medical officers and nursing staff to attend to them,” he said. He complained the junior doctors treating the Covid-19 patients did not have the personal protection equipment to prevent themselves from getting infected.
According to the LRH media manager, Mohammad Asim, all the doctors are given necessary equipment to deal with coronavirus patients. “Our staff is well-equipped and we do care about all of employees but it is a large hospital where patients are brought from everywhere in emergency. You can’t refuse to treat a patient needing medical cover and that could be the reason that our staff members contracted the virus,” he said.