The state of Hospitals in Pukhtunkhwa

There are like two major hospitals in Peshawar, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH). As I am in my 4th year, we spend like 3 hours in KTH going to different wards every week and learning new things from the Doctors. Recently we had to go to the Orthopaedic ward, which was so congested. It was unbelievable, usually people with broken legs and broken arms come to this ward. Yet there was no sitting place for them. They would be held by someone else and waiting outside for their turn. It must be quite painful for the patients. I took a picture so you can just try to understand what it is like. I think the hospital administration have totally neglected this ward. Like at least people should have a place to sit....

  The medical wards are not as bad. Then when you would go inside one of the rooms on the left, there would be an Orthopaedic specialist surrounded by 5 Junior Doctors who don't have a clue about Orthopaedics. They were as clueless as we were. Patients would fill the room and the Junior Doctors would just ask silly questions and just waste time doing the wrong things. It was just pure chaos. If you complain about these things people will just tell you, that you should be grateful we even have a hospital. No doubt the Doctors are facing difficult with low funds. But at least there are things you can do which does not require money. Changing your attitude requires no money. They say if your educated people are having these bad qualities, what do you expect from the illiterate people. I have seen that illiteracy is a major problem but then at the same time as a Doctor you have principles. If an illiterate person comes to a hospital in England, no matter how much he annoys the Doctor he will have to comfort him and he will definately not be allowed to get angry or abuse the patient. It is quite common in the hospitals in Peshawar to see a Doctor shouting at his patients and even swearing at them.

I have to say there are however quite a few Doctors who go out their way to help the needy and do extra work although getting no extra pay. With the lack of resources they have done a great job and service to the people. It would be great to see these kind of Doctors in every ward and every hospital, then we would see a revolutionary change in the health system despite under funding from the government.