IsWhen
I look back to 1996 when I relocated from
USA to Pakistan to start the building of a
new hospital in Lahore. At that time it was
a dream, a concept, or a hair-brained scheme.
Most people thought Javed and I were crazy
in giving up so much in USA and coming back
to Pakistan to chase a dream. Yes, we had
a dream of building a state of the art hospital
with all the instruments and equipment needed
to give good medical care. Initially we recruited
a number of US trained, and experienced Board
certified doctors who were prepared to come
back to Pakistan. Later, on however only about
half of these doctors did come back to Pakistan.
For the other half the pastures were greener
in USA and they stayed back, with the promise
to come back to Pakistan one day. All of them
invested heavily in this hospital. Without
their financial investment and support this
hospital could not have been built. For the
first five years there was so much work to
do – look for an appropriate piece of
land, to generate funds, to execute architectural
plans, etc. etc. but every thing fell into
place and the results are in front of every
one to see. I can only thank Allah for his
Kindness and Mercy in giving this hospital
so much recognition in such a short a time.
Doctors
Hospital is now a premier institution providing
quality health care. There are multiple specialties
– and state of the art surgeries are
being conducted here at a fraction of the
cost of USA or England. Our motto is to provide
excellence in health care at an affordable
cost. Our consultants who trained in the best
institutions of USA and England have returned
to serve their country with a commitment that
is exemplary. In a short period of time, Doctors
hospital has become a center of excellence
in the field of Orthopaedic Surgery, Cardiac
Surgery, Invasive Cardiology, Internal Medicine,
Neurology, Pulmonary, Intensive Care and Paediatrics
and many more specialties that are too numerous
to be named individually. On the diagnostic
side our hospital can boast a full complement
of Radiological services including MRI, Helical
CT, Two Angiography Machines, Nuclear Medicine,
Fluoroscopy, Echocardiology, Mammography and
Routine X-rays. Doctors hospital will be one
of the few with Total Digital X-rays in the
very near future. We are catering not only
to the patients in Lahore but also to patients
form Faisalabad, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Sialkot
and even Sindh, Rahim Yar Khan, Swat, in fact
from all over the Pakistan. We have even treated
patients from UK, USA and the Middle East.
Our present bed strength is one hundred and
thirty beds out of which twenty are reserved
for low cost treatment. We are now at the
stage of expanding our bed strength and services
to meet the growing demands and needs of our
patients. Once this expansion project is completed
the hospital will become a four hundred-bed
hospital. About one hundred beds will be reserved
for low cost medical care, even free medical
care for charity patients.
A hospital
is a very complex organization. It has a medical
treatment wing. Every one is aware of its
Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics. It also has
a hotel aspect, in which all the needs of
the " guest" need to be catered for. This
includes food, toiletries, care of the visitors
and relatives. Besides all the services and
utilities needed to be provided round the
clock. To give you an example uninterrupted
electric supply is taken for granted in the
western world. When a person is on a ventilator
and is breathing by an artificial machine
a loss of power can be immediately fatal.
The regulatory authorities need to be convinced
to allow the hospital a dual or alternate
source of electric power, so if one grid fails
the other can kick in and provide life saving
electricity. Even with all this there are
times when the whole hospital runs only on
standby generators for hours because of electric
power breakdown. Taking care of relatives
from all social backgrounds sometimes becomes
a challenge. There are people for whom the
air-conditioning is not cold enough and for
others they are suffocated and want to be
out in the open air. To please every one is
a constant juggling act. Most of the time
we succeed, but not always. We will keep trying
and hope to come up to the expectation s of
all our guests.
The
hospital is managed in a very professional
manner. The Medical Care is under total control
of the Consultants with the help of the junior
doctors and Nurses. The Facility manager looks
after all the day to day Housekeeping and
Sanitary arrangements as well all the Food
supply. All accounts and medicine supply,
equipment inventory are computerized. All
repair and maintenance is computerized to
show when an item was purchased, from whom,
at what cost, and what has been its service
and maintenance record. In House Biomedical
Engineering takes care of the day today upkeep
of complex medical machinery. Medical Records
are gradually being computerized as well.
At present all Operation Records are computerized
as are the Discharge Summaries. We have not
been able to go to a totally paperless medical
records. We feel that in our social system
this may take some time to accomplish.
What
is our vision of the future? We are very optimistic
about the future of Health care in Pakistan.
All of us very strongly feel that the private
enterprise system needs to be strengthened
and improved. It has a definite role to play
not only in the provision of health care to
private patients but also in providing care
to the less fortunate and the poor patients.
To expect the Government to do every thing
and provide health care to all is not possible.
Our Doctors are second to none. We need to
provide them an opportunity to show their
worth. We also need to be more appreciative
of what they do.
In the
end I would like to pay tribute to our friends
who have invested heavily in this project
and the tireless work that a few have put
in to get this project functional and running.
I thank Allah for his Help and Mercy. |
