By Asim Nawaz Abbassi
PESHAWAR, NOVEMBER 5 2018: Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa (KPK) province shocked it’s residents and policy makers with a revelation about daily deaths of newborn babies. According to Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) 22 newborn babies and a pregnant woman die every day in the province.
Another alarming factor is that this number is actually much bigger than this as this is the data come from Basic Health Units, Regional Health Centres and District Headquarters Hospitals. However, this data is without the 10 teaching hospitals of the province and thousands maternity homes.
The important yet alerting disclosure has come out after Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Â president Dr Hussain Ahmad moved an application with a detailed report in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, seeking a suo moto notice of the deaths of 22 newborn babies and one pregnant woman in hospitals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa every day.
While talking to The Dayspring President PMA Dr. Hussain said that “it’s time to take necessary actions before the situation further aggravated. The state is liable to provide basic health facilities to public but it has completely failed doing so”.
The report also stated that 3,979 newborn babies from the first day up to one month time had died in the first 180 days of 2018. Besides, it said 178 pregnant women had also died in the hospitals during this period. The data submitted in the apex court is provided by the District Health Information System and collected from Rural Health Centers and labour rooms of tehsil and district government hospitals of the province.
As per the report, 2259 children who died were suckling babies, not more than one month of age, and 1720 babies died immediately after the birth. It said that 560 babies died in District Bannu hospitals, 506 in Haripur, 226 in Swat and 110 in Kohat.
Similarly, it said 178 pregnant women had died in the hospitals, including 31 in Nowshera, 15 in Abbottabad, 20 in Mansehra and 21in Dera Ismail Khan hospitals.
The PMA president also pointed out before the Chief Justice of Pakistan that there is no ICU Ventilator in District Headquarters Hospitals of the province and many patients died during operations due to non-availability of ICU Ventilators. Besides, he stated in the application that the ICU Ventilators were also not available in the private hospitals of the province except a few.
However, he indicated that legally no surgery can be conducted in a hospital where there is no ventilator facility. It was also stated in the detailed report that the condition of government hospitals is worsening day by day. He said that people are dying in hospitals and the government did not take measures in this regard.
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