A year on, Burns Emergency Center still not operational

KARACHI: According to sources, The Burns Emergency Centre at the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (SMBB) Institute of Trauma has not been made functional as yet. The hiring of specialist doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other staff was yet to start despite its inauguration by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

The SMBB Institute of Trauma’s management, allocated its 8th floor for the Burns Emergency Centre to provide emergency treatment facilities to burn-injured and also procured costly equipment. However, the center has still not been made functional as yet.

The SMBB’s management has allocated 40 beds for burns-related emergencies; 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 the past five years due to the unavailability of staff.

Critically injured patients are transferred to private-sector health facilities from the Trauma Center as their own Burns Emergency Centre was not operational. This 14-storied ‘state-of-the-art’ Trauma Center was inaugurated in 2009 at the cost of Rs2.22 billion, but the excessive delays increased the value of the project.

Around Rs7 billion have already been spent on its different projects so far, but several departments have not been made operational yet due to the shortage of workforce, funds, and other resources.

Chief Operating Officer (COO), SMBB Institute of Trauma, Dr Aijaz Zubedi, was not available to make any comments.