Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas divisions: No ventilator for babies in public hospitals

KARACHI: Not a single pediatric ventilator is available at any public sector hospital in Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas divisions as well as in district Tharparkar from where dozens of children, requiring artificial ventilation, are referred to the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), Karachi. But many don’t survive the journey, experts and officials told The News on Wednesday.

Pediatric or neonatal intensive care ventilators provide temporary breathing support to premature and critically ill babies, who require total or partial assistance to maintain adequate ventilation, experts said adding that pediatric ventilators are life-saving equipment, whose unavailability at public health facilities is one of the leading causes of infant mortality in the province.

“We don't have any pediatric ventilator at the Liaquat University Hospital Hyderabad (LUHH) at the moment but we are going to have three new Intensive Care Units for adults, children and infants within this month”, conceded Dr. Mubashir Ali Kolachi, Medical Superintendent of the LUHH, while talking to The News.

Senior pediatricians at the Liaquat University Hospital, Hyderabad, said due to the absence of any pediatric ICU without the support of ventilator, they were compelled to refer premature babies requiring artificial ventilation to a charity hospital in Hyderabad or the National Institute of Child Health Karachi (NICH).

Health officials at public hospitals in Mipurkhas, Mithi, Thatta and Badin also confirmed that they didn’t have any neonatal ventilator at their health facilities and children requiring artificial breathing were mostly referred to the NICH Karachi.

Director NICH Karachi Dr Nasir Saleem said they were receiving children requiring artificial ventilation from entire Sindh, other areas of Karachi and even from Balochistan, while they only had 25 neonatal ventilators, which always remain occupied.

“Premature babies from entire Sindh are referred to NICH Karachi as most of the public hospitals in other cities and districts of the province lack neonatal ICUs with ventilators. I assume many children don’t even manage to reach Karachi due to long distance and expire on the way to hospital," Dr. Nasir Saleem added.

There exists no referral system for critically sick children in the province, the NICH director said adding that children are referred to Karachi without knowing whether any ventilator is available at the hospital or not.

"If there is referral system and emergency dashboard available, doctors at each and every hospital would know where to send the extremely sick children or whether there is any ventilator available at any hospital or not," Dr Nasir said and added that establishment of pediatric and neonatal ICUs with ventilators at divisional and district level health facilities can save many lives.

He said keeping a child on ventilator costs at least 15,000-20,000 rupees per day and as most of the parents cannot afford treatment at private hospitals, they bring their children to NICH, which is unable to deal with such a large number of critically sick patients.