KARACHI:The advance robotic surgery machine and CT scan machine of Sindh Government Qatar Hospital, Orangi Town, Karachi, are lying idle due to shortage of funds and manpower.
Pakistan’s 1st advance robotic surgery machine was installed at Operation Theater of Sindh Government Qatar Hospital in 2011. Ex-Governor Sindh Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan had inaugurated the latest robotic machine in October 2011. This costly machine is lying as waste in the hospital since 2014 as the hospital administration is unable to run it due to shortage of funds and manpower.
A senior official at Qatar Hospital, Orangi Town, told PPI that some major advantages of robotic surgery are precision, miniaturization, smaller incisions, decreased blood loss, less pain, and quicker healing time. The hospital administration had performed 70 successful surgeries from 2011 to 2014, but later, surgeries through robotic machine had been stopped due to unavailability of funds.
The hospital management had sent several requests to high ups of health department Sindh for release of funds to run the robotic machine on prominent basis, but no positive response was received from authorities concerned. He said the cost of per surgery is million of rupees at private hospitals while Qatar Hospital had performed all surgeries free of cost before this machine developed technical fault.
The hospital administration needs funds for repairing this machine and it had sent a request to authorities concerned of Sindh health department for release of funds to get this machine repaired and make it operational.
The machine will help doctors perform surgeries, including partial nephrectomy and radical nephrectomy or removal of prostate gland, removal of cancerous tumours and kidneys infected with renal cell carcinomas.
Similarly, CT Scan machine at Qatar Hospital had also been lying out of order since several months due to sheer negligence of Sindh health department. The poor patients are being referred to private lab for CT scan test.
Medical Superintendent, Sindh Government Qatar Hospital, Orangi Town, Dr Noushad Sheikh, while talking to PPI, said cable of CT scan had burst during Karachi rains and efforts are underway to make machine operational soon. He admitted that robotic surgery machine has been lying non-functional before his joining as MS.