Dearth of incubators in Peshawar hospitals exposes newborns to health risks

PESHAWAR: A dearth of incubators and increasing number of child deliveries at hospitals in the city have put the lives of weak or early-born babies at risk as they are made to share incubators, each of which are meant to keep one newborn at a time.

While talking to Geo News, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Paediatric Ward Incharge Professor Dr Afzal Khattak said they have 25 incubators at the facility, which are insufficient given that daily 45 newborns are in need of special care.

Therefore, he said, they keep five children in one incubator.

Even the oxygen pipe in the incubator from which can be attached to only one newborn at a time is shared among five. Four to Five pipes are attached to the main oxygen supply in each incubator.

The sharing of incubators leaves newborns sharing them exposed to health risks, said sources at the hospital.

Asadullah, who present outside the special care unit of paediatric ward at LRH, was not satisfied with his newborn son being kept in the incubator at the facility. 

He said that in private hospitals the mother is usually taken to the newborn kept in incubators in order to feed them, but at LRH they were neither taking the mother to their son, nor where giving them any details about his health.

The tertiary care health facilities in Peshawar — LRH being one of them — get patients not only from the city but from across the province and adjoining tribal areas.

The high number of patients at each of the tertiary care hospital is one of the reasons why they fall short of health care facilities, the ward incharge said.

While LRH has 25 incubators, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex have 11 each.

According to Dr Khattak the problem would be solved if machinery, such as incubators, are installed in hospitals of other districts as well. This would ease the burden on Peshawar hospitals.