Encroachments have again reappeared around major public hospitals of the city, creating immense problems for drivers of ambulances carrying injured and emergency patients and medical staff and yet the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) Encroachment Cell seemed to be playing the role of a silent spectator.
During a visit to different hospitals of the metropolis such as Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK), Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH), Sindh Institute of Skin Diseases (SISD) and Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), one would see that not only the roads leading to these health facilities have been heavily encroached upon, but even the adjacent narrow streets have been unlawfully occupied by pushcarts selling fruits and other eatable items.
Though the KMC’s Encroachment Cell during its recent campaign against encroachments had removed encroachments from different roads and streets leading to the best hospital and from their surroundings, encroachers have once again re-appeared there, creating untold miseries, especially for those patients who are brought to the hospitals in emergency situation and those visiting the hospitals for either treatment purpose or for regular check-ups.
Even drivers of ambulances find it difficult to rush serious patients to the health facilities in the wake of heavily occupied roads and streets and haphazard parking of vehicles on either sides of surrounding roads and streets.
An official of CHK told Medical News that the hospital’s road where its emergency department is located often remain heavily occupied with pushcarts and vendors, thereby creating hindrance for the smooth flow of private vehicles as well as for ambulances bringing patients to the health facility’s emergency department.
Even two major roads – M. A. Jinnah Road and Baba-e-Urdu Road – from where vehicular traffic approach towards the CHK and SIUT, usually remain blocked due to presence of heavy encroachment and haphazard parking of vehicles, particularly motorcycles.
Similarly, officials of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital complained that some private rescue organizations have unlawfully set up ambulance counters just in front of the hospital’s main entrance, causing inconvenience for patients and ambulances carrying injured and other serious patients to the health facility’s emergency ward.
News source: Medical News Pakistan