Paediatrics unit to be set up at District Headquarters Hospital

Rawalpindi
The Punjab government has approved one of the biggest schemes prepared for the District Headquarters Hospital in last 15 years through which it apart from having a number of essential equipment and machines would be able to establish a paediatrics unit.
The PC-1 of the scheme for equipment worth Rs129.625 million was sent to the provincial government under Annual Development Programme 2015-16 which has been approved, said DHQ Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr. Khalid Randhawa while talking to ‘The News’ on Wednesday.
He said the hospital has been facing shortage of equipment and machines for properly accommodating poor patients visiting the hospital for years. Keeping this in mind, he prepared a scheme for the required equipment and machines.
The scheme includes purchase of a laundry plant. The District Headquarters Hospital is the only teaching hospital having no laundry plant, said Dr. Randhawa. He said the scheme also includes five ventilators and three portable X-Ray machines along with one colour doppler ultrasound and a central oxygen system.
“We have only five cardiac monitors and have demanded another 10 under the scheme,” he said, adding that the hospital also demanded anaesthesia workstation which is not available in the hospital. Through the scheme, the hospital demanded of the government to provide as many as 10 hydraulic ICU beds and two ultrasound machines to the hospital, said Dr. Randhawa.
He said the hospital has five operation theatre tables available, while three more OT tables have been demanded for properly catering to the needs of a heavy burden of patients the hospital has been facing for years.
He said the District Headquarters Hospital has only three haemodialysis machines which are in no way sufficient to cater to the needs of a heavy burden of patients visiting the hospital for dialysis. Keeping this in mind, the hospital administration has demanded the government to provide three more machines to the hospital under the scheme, he said.
To a query, he said, the hospital has been operating gynaecology unit for decades but ironically there has not been a paediatrics unit in the hospital. The hospital administration is planning to establish a 32-bed paediatrics unit for which the required equipment and machinery has been demanded through the scheme whose PC-1 was sent to the government in June this year, said Dr. Randhawa.
The DHQ Hospital administration has demanded two paediatric ventilators, one neonatal ventilator and 10 incubators for establishing a proper nursery for newborns, he said. He added the hospital has also demanded a total of five phototherapy units for the planned paediatrics unit.
To a query, he said after approval of the scheme by the Punjab government, he hopes that equipment would be available to the hospital before June 2016 and the hospital would be able to accommodate thousands of more patients after a year.
The District Headquarters Hospital is located in one the most crowded areas of town, Raja Bazaar. Most people visiting the hospital belong to low income group and they should be accommodated in the public sector hospital, said Dr. Randhawa while responding to a query.