A visit to Lady Reading Hospital in KP

Islamabad: In 1924, it took a Viceroy’s wife in Peshawar, to fall off a horse, sustaining serious injuries, with no proper medical facilities in the area, resulting in nearly 5000 Pakhtuns and non-Pakhtuns benefiting daily today, from facilities at Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s largest and oldest hospital - Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), and the only public sector hospital in KPK which has specialties both medical and surgical fields.

 It is the only hospital today in KPK that has a dedicated Rheumatology Department.

Lady Reading, the Viceroy’s wife, returned to Peshawar in 1926 where she fiercely campaigned, donated Rs50,000 (a king’s ransom these days), finally resulting in what is today, the Lady Reading Hospital.

It was a chance visit to offer moral support to a patient from Karachi that one stepped for the first time into Peshawar’s government run, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), (Loye Huspatal). Having being raised on a diet of Combined Military Hospitals (CMH) while growing up, and visiting friends and family in private hospitals, reports about government hospitals were scary to say the least.

“Don’t even think of government run hospitals in Rawalpindi. Even stray cats have stopped giving litters there”, was the view of one Pindiite. 

The other joke was about a Karachiite seeking treatment in Peshawar. 

“Normally its the other way around!”, said someone underestimating a city, which together with its people have been terrorised and bombed for decades, yet its citizens walk with their heads high.

Blissfully, it were Peshawar’s LRH doctors that revealed that the patient was indeed, misdiagnosed in a private Karachi hospital, and was not ailing with “suspected cancer”. 

One was unprepared for the sea of humanity outside the Out Patient Department (OPD), merging through a single gate, as security threats have closed most of 17 gates, one with extraordinary pillars of times gone, which should be preserved from garbage collected outside it. Just a few gates open are not enough. 

“We have daily 4,000 to 5,000 patients in OPD where the casualty strength is nearly 2,600 patients and from amongst these 100 plus undergo minor operations and 25 plus major operations as emergency”, a young doctor navigating through the crowds remarked.

A physician proudly points to another facility, “We have changed Casualty Accident and Emergency Dept run by UK qualified Faculty and recognised by College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan (CPSP) as the first Public Sector Teaching Accident and Emergency Department”.

Was not surprised hence that since it’s the only public sector hospital in KPK which has all specialties both medical and surgical, with daily 58 Elective Operating Tables run in addition to Casualty.

Over the years one had heard from family and friends, of the overall improvement provided by the PTI government in health services. Imran Khan had once famously said of his network of cancer hospitals, with one now in Peshawar, “The construction of a free cancer hospital is beyond logic, wisdom and rationality”.

In other area LRH appeared to be a tented village and what appeared to be entire rural community coming to attend to patients admitted in the state of art Intensive Care Units (ICU).

 It appears that inside there are Intensivists from the US, physicians who specialise in the care of critically ill patients, and come on a weekly rotation with a deal made with Alumni of Khyber Medical College in US.

However, the spacious surroundings with large gardens and the famed Peshawar roses in bloom, with filtered drinking water aplenty and covered waiting areas, all the villagers outside the ICU, had to do was unroll their bedding and wait it out.

Driving and walking around one sees the nearly century old Qila Balahisar on one side and the world renowned Masjid Muhabat Khan, Qissa Khawani Bazaar and Ander Shehr Bazarr across the LRH road, making LRH one of the most accessible place in the city.

Inside many of the facilities one sees spanking new floorings, comfortable chairs for patients, air conditioning, fans and easy access to drinking water. But patients and their attendants leave no stone unturned littering the area in spite of rubbish bins and spitting out at their heart’s content. “The amount of development, equipment purchased, faculty recruited, new specialties started, civil works done in the last three years is more than what I have seen in the last twenty five years”, says a senior doctor.

When you ask around, one name keeps coming up. “Dr Nausherwan Burki”, a force to be reckoned with and though appointed by Imran Khan, pays no heed to his cousin when comes to administration, literally ‘prowls’ around on his self paid visits for a week from the US, claiming no reimbursements.

“On his last visit as I was walking into my department well before time, he stopped me glanced at his watch and remarked, “I was hoping to catch you coming in late”, recalls a senior surgeon.

In his late seventies the silvered haired Pulmonary Disease Specialist from Connecticut last made news in Pakistan as the designer and executioner of the master plan of Lahore’s Shaukat Khanum hospital and consequently others built in Peshawar and Karachi.

Burki is now the Chairman of the Board of Governors at LRH and the Peshawar Institute of Cardiology, and quickly integrated LRH in several areas with Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospitals.

“These systems that you see, and the reason we are so far ahead technically is because Dr Burki ensured that Shaukat Khanum gifted us free of cost this proprietary software, for use in all KPK Medical Teaching Institutes (MTI)”, says a technician.

Specialists say that Dr Burki saw no reason why LRH should lag behind in health services since there were enough government funds available and LRH was also generating funds from diagnostics, private rooms, and institutional based private practice.

‘Corruption’, earlier rampant in LRH, was an unheard word in his dictionary. “Soon we saw that all the data, lab reports and radiology in Accident and Emergency are online, with Burki setting up a state of art Physiotherapy and Rehab Department with faculty he recruited from Aga Khan Hospital, and changed the decades old medical store to a modern pharmacy”, reveals a physician.

Doctors can be seen in groups discussing something out of their field……politics. 

Burki and his Board are up for another 3 years extension as their current tenure finishes in May. 

“If this extension does not happen and he is replaced by a bureaucrat or political appointee, not only all that has been achieved be lost but would open the floodgates of corruption and nepotism”, says a worried doctor who has served his entire career here. Sadly, bureaucrats and politicians have their knives out get rid of Burki and jump on the Gravy Train. When questions were asked how LRH could be saved, a six years old piped out, “Only Uncle Burki can make it happen”.