ISLAMABAD: Citizens on Sunday demanded of the authorities concerned to improve healthcare services at the emergency department of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) to entertain the maximum number of patients. According to them, a large number of patients from far-flung areas visit the PIMS emergency unit daily and face many problems because of lack of facilities and adequate services. When contacted, the Vice Chancellor, Shaheed Zulifqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, PIMS Dr Javed Akram, said that a sufficient number of doctors performed duties at the hospital’s emergency wards. They said that only limited beds were available at the wards situated in the emergency department, where not only the staff was limited but there was an acute shortage of medicines as well. They asked to take notice of the frequent absence of senior doctors and non-observance of the duty-roster by the medical and the non-medical staff at the emergency unit. They said there should be a monitoring mechanism to check them whether the duty staff observed their duties or not. Amir Shah, a patient, alleged that senior doctors mostly remained absent from their duties while only postgraduate (PG) doctors, who were studying there, ran the affairs of the most sensitive unit of the hospital. He added that due to the limited knowledge and experience, the PGs could not satisfy the patients having serious medical complications. They even could not properly treat patients with minor medical issues and mostly referred the serious patients to other hospitals. Taimoor Khan, another patient, said due to the non-professional attitude of the staff at the emergency, the patients faced several hardships, particularly those who are in a very critical condition. Sometimes patients at the emergency department, he said, needed immediate response from expert doctors but only general physicians were found there and the specialist doctors could not reach the ward on time. He said the authorities concerned should immediately expand the emergency ward with more staff to provide timely and properly medical care to the patients. Another patient, Abbas Ali, demanded the deployment of sufficient staff, including medical and para-medical staff, at the emergency wards in order to deliver better services to the patients. He said, keeping in view the serious nature of the section, only well trained medical and non-medical staff, who know the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and all other procedures, should be assigned at the PIMS emergency wards. Imran Nazir, the brother of a patient, said the hospital needed the latest centralised cooling system as the present central cooling system at PIMS had been out of order since long. He said many serious patients needed specific room temperature for healing of injuries and even for operations at the operation theatres but no one was taking care of this important matter. Kashif Kalam, a patient complained that the hospital’s Bone Marrow Transplant Unit had become nonfunctional since long and this had resulte in the increase in the sufferings of of thalassaemia patients particularly the children. He said that postgraduate doctors who are fourth year medical students with having enough skills properly looked after the patients at the emergency wards while the registrar and other senior doctors also examined the patients. He dispelled this impression of any shortage of medicine or staff at the hospital’s emergency units and said that medicines were available in sufficient quality to meet the daily requirements. Dr Javed Akram said that the hospital management had started training sessions with medical practitioners to improve their communication skills with patients and attendants. He said that there was also the salary issue of the staff of the hospital’s Bone Marrow Transplant Unit as the unit was functioning on a project basis, which hasd completed its project time. He added PC-4 of the project had been submitted and a meeting was held in this regard. He added around 120 staff members of the unit including 40 nurses and 20 doctors would be deployed in the unit soon.