KARACHI:The Burns Emergency Centre at Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (SMBB) Institute of Trauma has not made functional, as hiring of specialist doctors, nurses, paramedics and other staff has not started as yet, this project was inaugurated by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in December 2015.
The SMBB Institute of Trauma management has allocated their 8th floor for Burns Emergency Centre to provide emergency treatment facilities to burn injured and also procured costly equipment, but the center is still not functional.
However, recruitment of specialist doctors, paramedical staff and nurses has not initiated yet. The SMBB management has allocated 40 beds for burns-related emergencies; out of then ten each for High Dependency Units (HDU), male, female and children units.
Ten separate rooms were also designed for patients who require intensive burns care management.
The costly equipment has been lying idle for last five years due to unavailability of staff.
The critical burn related injured patients are being to private sector health facilities from trauma center as their own Burns Emergency Centre has not started working as yet.
This 14-storied ‘state-of-the-art’ trauma center was started in January 2009 with cost Rs2.22 billion but the excessive delays increased the cost of project.
Around Rs7 billion have already been spent on it different projects so far but several departments are not made operational yet due to shortage of manpower, funds and other reasons.
Chief Operating Officer (COO), SMBB Institute of Trauma, Dr Aijaz Zubedi, was not available for comment.