Lead Report
PESHAWAR: The administration of Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) on Friday claimed to have achieved most of the targets of providing better care to the patients, expansion of services, employing more trained and qualified staff and installing the latest diagnostic equipment at the hospital.
Besides bringing a visible change in the hospital affairs, the HMC administration succeeded in making the hospital’s revenue almost double in 2016 by initiating a number steps such as hiring of trained managers, networking of all the departments and first time maintaining hospital record properly.
After getting financial and administrative autonomy, under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical and Teaching Institution Reforms Act 2015 in January last year, the Board of Governors (BoG) of the HMC outlines a three-year plan (2016-2018) and set strategic targets to achieve in three-year period.
Impressed by the performance shown by the HMC administration in past one year in terms of improvement patient care, renovation of the hospital, expansion of services and maintaining proper record of accounts, expenses and expenditures, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had decided to present HMC as a model to the remaining hospitals to follow it.
The government is still not satisfied with the performance of Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) in Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) in Abbottabad and wanted them to follow HMC, where huge development works were carried out and the hospital was never closed for a single day when doctors and health workers opposing certain health policies used to forcibly shut other hospitals.
Senior government officials believe the main reason behind success story of HMC is the vision and better coordination between chairman of BoG Sahibzada Saeed and the hospital administration led by Prof Shehzad Akbar.
Sahibzada Saeed and Prof Shehzad Akbar on Friday briefed media people about their achievements and targets they had set for 2018.Sahibzada Saeed said we achieved 95 percent of the targets that we set for 2018. Besides sharing figures with the media, the hospital administration also shown pictures of different areas which were taken before and after they began work on three-year plan.
In 2015 when the 1200 bedded hospital was handed over to the BoG, Prof Shehzad Akbar said, they didn’t have proper diagnostic equipment and investigation services in the hospital, forcing patients for getting all those services from a market.
“When we took over, there was no MRI, no CT Scan, no DRS and the only mammography machine was out of order. The DR X-ray machine didn’t exist and we had to work with only two CR machines. Now we have the world’s latest MRI and CT Scan installed in HMC and DRS and mammography machine fully operational,” said Prof Shehzad Akbar.
Similarly, he said, only 55 percent of the investigations were done in HMC when they took charge and the remaining had to be carried out from private laboratories mostly located outside of the hospital.
In one year, he said by hiring more trained staff and purchasing new equipment helped upgrade the hospital pathology department that gave good results and now 95 percent of routine and specialised investigations of the highest quality are done in the hospital.
The Accident and Emergency Department (A&E), with having 12-bed only, was the most neglected portion of the hospital. There was neither a diagnostic and therapeutic service nor trained staff.
However, according to Prof Shehzad, the A & E Department was fully renovated and expanded it to up to 28 beds.The hospital administration set up five satellite pharmacy shops in the hospital, one of them in the Emergency Department where all the patients are given free drugs.
Despite facing tough resistance from private pharmacists, the HMC administration set up fair price pharmacy shop where outdoor patients can buy maximum of medicines on reasonable prices
The cardiac facilities started in HMC during the previous Awami National Party-Pakistan People’s Party government had become an identity of the hospital due to the quality of work done there.
Sahibzada Saeed said the Cardiology Department of electrophysiology in the HMC is only one in South Asia.“India is advanced than the United Kingdom in cardiac services but they don’t have electrophysiology,” he said.
A second Cath Laboratory was installed HMC offering free angiography, angioplasty and arrhythmia services to the deserving patients. He said the second Cath lab has reduced waiting time of patients from three months to one month.
Prof Zahid Aslam Awan is head of the facility, stated to be the only one in Pakistan that offers atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmia ablation beside coronary procedures.
