Polyclinic to continue providing medical services to resident, non-resident patients

ISLAMABAD-The Federal Government Services Polyclinic (FGSP) hospital will continue providing medical services to all patients including residents and non-residents of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), officials said on Saturday.

Spokesperson FGSP hospital Dr. Jabbar Bhutto talking to The Nation said that the hospital will provide medical facilities to all residents and non-residents of the ICT.

Meanwhile, he also informed that the hospital had restricted the medical services for non-residents due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) situation. He said that the hospital had decided to reduce the COVID-19 burden from the hospital. “Patients visiting the hospital were advised to take medical services from their nearby hospital instead of visiting the FGSP hospital considering the situation of COVID-19,” he said.

Dr. Javed Bhutto said that there are 28 dispensaries of the FGSP hospital in different areas of the city and patients of the respective areas were advised to take medicine from there instead of coming to the main hospital.

“There were long queues of patients being observed in the hospital increasing the risk of COVID-19 spread,” he said.

Dr. Javed Bhutto said that there is no patients’ refusal to visit any patient and all will be examined.

Earlier, the people visiting the hospital had complained that the hospital had refused to provide medical services to the patients not having address of the federal capital on the identity cards.

The hospital before the pandemic was catering around 10,000 patients in the Outpatients Department (OPD) daily. The administration had to close the OPD when the virus in the city was on rise due to an influx of patients in the hospital.

As per the data released by the hospital administration, the hospital examined 113,533 patients before the COVID-19 emerged in the city only in the month of December 2019 and patients’ influx was increasing monthly because of inflation and poverty.

The hospital is already examining around 4,500 patients in the Outdoor Patients Department (OPD) daily.

The data released said that in the month of December 2019, 82,295 patients were examined in OPD while 29,101 were brought and treated in the hospital emergency. While the hospital has a capacity of 550 beds, it also retained 1,457 patients during the previous month.

Officials informed The Nation that the project of extension of the hospital has also been shelved after the court decided the land issue against the hospital. 

As per the plan, the hospital capacity was to be doubled by the Ministry of National Health Services at a portion of Argentina Park. The authorities had also mulled increasing the storeys of the hospital as a second option but it was also not implemented. 

Meanwhile, there was also no fund allocation for increasing the capacity of the hospital in the previous budget which also dimmed the hope of hospital extension, officials said. 

Officials at the Ministry of National Health Services said that the government has decided to expand the hospital on the alternative land allocated in the city and hopefully its construction will start soon. He said that hospital staff needs appreciation on the performance of examining above 100,000 patients in a month which was beyond their capacity.

Article source: https://nation.com.pk/24-Jan-2021/polyclinic-to-continue-providing-medical-services-to-resident-non-resident-patients