Thanks to health reforms, Mardan hospital upgrades services

MARDAN: The health reforms of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government have helped the Mardan Medical Complex (HMC) administration to upgrade existing services and establish additional specialties such as neurosurgery department, multi-drug tuberculosis resistant (MDR) and cleft palate or cleft lip centre.

However, the hospital’s Board of Governors (BoG) and its management need to do lot of hard work to cope with patients’ inflow not only from Mardan but also those being referred to MMC from Swabi, Charsadda, Nowshera and Malakand districts and Bajaur Agency.

Interestingly, the services for which most of the patients are referred to MMC from Swabi, Nowshera and the peripheries are already available in those areas.There are medical colleges with upgraded tertiary care hospitals in Nowshera and Swabi, but still patients are sent to MMC.

Nowshera is hometown of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak while Health Minister Shahram Tarakai hails from Swabi.Chairman BoG of MMC, Prof Dr Fazle Hadi, is said to have upgraded most of the services and has plans to establish additional specialties, but the lack of space remains a hurdle.

The Bacha Khan Medical College (BKMC) was started in a portion of MMC in 2010.The construction work on the building began in 2010 in the same premises to have a separate building for the college.

It was supposed to be completed in 2014. The civil work has been completed, but its formal hand over to the college was delayed due to differences with Communication and Works Department over installation of the air-conditioning system.

The college administration wanted the contractor to install VRF system while C&W Department has been insisting on an outdated HVC system.Since the college was named after a political figure Abdul Ghaffar Khan aka Bacha Khan, the present PTI-led government showed no interest in the projects launched by the previous Awami National Party (ANP)-led government during its during.

The projects were delayed for years due to the reluctance of the PTI government to provide funds.The same is the case with the college hostel building, which has been completed but the boarders currently living in a rented building could not be shifted due to lack of water and gas there.

Prof Fazle Hadi has rightly pointed out that they would have opened new specialties had the hospital space been returned to them.There were several challenges when the college and hospital were brought under the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act 2015.

The biggest challenge was ensuring duty timing of the staff and getting rid of a private pharmacy set up inside the hospital in front of the casualty department.The owner was politically influential and the BoG and the hospital administration faced tough resistance and life threats when they decided to remove the pharmacy.

Now MMC has become the first public sector hospital in the province after the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) to have its own pharmacy with qualified pharmacists and a new well-furnished building.It remains open round the clock and is contributing to the hospital’s revenue.

A desperately needed neurosurgery department was established in MMC in 2009, but it lacked trained faculty members. The BoG appointed a qualified neurosurgeon, Dr Naeemul Haq, who in a short time enabled MMC to be the fourth public sector hospital in KP to have specialist neurosurgery service. It is now undertaking advanced surgical procedures like brain tumour, previously done in LRH, HMC and ATH only.

Dr Naeemul Haq along with two other young neurosurgeons conducted more than 300 procedures. As they don’t have a separate ward and operation theatre, patients coming from nearby districts are required to wait for months.

The hospital ICU had become quite old and lacked the latest services. The board utilising funds provided by the provincial government completely renovated the ICU by installing monitors and oxygen connection with all beds. The staff, dedicated for ICU only was trained at the Shifa International Islamabad.

A doctor on duty in the ICU said that after renovation of the ICU, it has become difficult for them to discharge the patient and they keep insisting on prolonged stay due to its clean environment.

“Since ICU is meant for critical patients, they use their influence when we send them to wards after their recovery,” hr added.The board also renovated seven operation theatres before someone could pay a surprise visit like Chief Justice Saqib Nisar who visited an operation theatre in the Ayub Teaching Hospital in Abbottabad and termed it unclean. It caused embarrassment to the hospital’s BoG and the PTI government.

Dr Fazle Hadi remarked that nobody would have liked to bring even their bullock to the operation theatre for surgery before its renovation.In order to provide immediate cover to the patients brought with chest pain, the hospital set up a nine-bedded Chest Pain Ward in the casualty department.The BoG is required to implement the MTI law in letter and spirit and make it binding on the medical director and dean to start institution-based private practice at the hospital.