At Sindh’s hospitals, clean drinking water a rarity

Patients and their attendants at over 95 hospitals in Karachi and rest of the province are either buying bottled water or drinking untreated and unhygienic water being supplied to the public and private health facilities.

A judicial commission formed on the directives of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in its report on March 3 had disclosed that 84 percent of the water being supplied to citizens of Karachi is unfit for human consumption due to presence of fecal material and bacteria, heavy metals, Total Dissolved Solvents (TDS) and other contents.

Following the directives from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Sindh Health Department at an urgent meeting last month had directed all the public hospitals to come up with plans to provide clean and safe drinking water to patients but not a single hospital has followed the instructions and taken measures to provide clean drinking water at least to its visiting or admitted patients.

Talking to The News, Dr. Zulfiqar Sial, a medical superintendent at the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK), admitted that the same water was being supplied to patients, their attendants, doctors and administrative officials that was being consumed by 84 percent of the people in Karachi as there was no water filtration plant installed at the CHK – the Sindh’s largest hospital.

“At CHK, we are consuming the same water that is being supplied to 84 percent areas of the city by the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB). In order to provide clean and safe drinking water, I have written a letter to the department for the installation of three RO [Reverse Osmosis] plants at the hospital on an urgent basis,” Sial told The News.

It has been learnt that the only water filter plant, which is installed by a welfare organisation, at the hospital is of no use as its filters haven’t been changed for years. An inspection revealed that the plant is supplying untreated water, which is consumed by patients and other people at the hospital.

Doctors at CHK said they bring water from their homes in bottles to consume at work or purchase bottled water as the hospital does not provide clean drinking water to patients and staff.

The situation is similar at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) where water to rusted water coolers is being supplied from an overhead tank, which first goes to a filter plant and then to the water coolers. Ironically, the filter plant installed many years ago has never been maintained and at the moment it is not functioning to provide clean, treated water to patients and their attendants.

“Doctors and staff at the NICH are aware that the water filter plant is not functioning so they get drinking water from the NICH emergency ward where an NGO running the department supply clean and safe drinking water to patients,” a doctor said.

The condition isn’t very much different at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases

(NICVD) where heart patients are compelled to drink unhealthy water, which, according to judicial commission comprising a senior judge of the Sindh High Court, is not fit for human consumption and their attendants have to buy bottled water.

According to Dr Hameedullah Malik of the NICVD, domestic filters are installed at every ward at the hospital and they are regularly looked after by the hospital staff. However, insiders claimed that quality of water from these filters was not up to the mark and they were also providing water to patients and their attendants that was not fit for human consumption.

Another major hospital being run by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), the Abbassi Shaheed Hospital (ASH), isn’t facing the same problems where patients, their attendants, doctors and paramedical staff are compelled to drink untreated water, resulting in serious health consequences for them.

Even the enquiry commission constituted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in its report incorporated pictures of a worn-out water filter and a rusting water cooler at a famous hospital in District Central, showing the apathy of health authorities in providing clean drinking water to the patients and their attendants.

The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) is perhaps the only hospital where almost half of the hospital’s wards are being supplied with filtered water, thanks to a RO plant installed at the hospital a couple of years back.

“We have sent the samples of water to the PCSIR Laboratories for analysis and the water has been declared fit for consumption as per chemical composition, pH and physiochemical characteristics of the water,” JPMC Executive Director Dr Seemin Jamali claimed, adding that microbiological tests report of the water being supplied to patients and attendants was yet to be received from the PCSIR laboratories.

The Aga Khan Hospital is the only private sector hospital which has installed water coolers for filtered, chilled water at many places on the hospital premises for the attendants of the patients, while patients at wards and private rooms are provided safe, clean drinking water.