Peshawar: According to health experts, the shortage of newborns has been attracting people to admit their newborns to private hospitals that are not set up in Peshawar and elsewhere in the province.
“Since there are few nursery wards in the area, patients are transferred to Peshawar, where bed shortages have become a serious problem. As a result, patients land in private hospitals without professional services,” he said, with the exception of some private hospitals, others do not have pharmacists or neonatologists, but they allow patients to make money.
He said a patient was recently taken to Mrs. Reading Hospital, where all 40 beds were occupied, and the parents took the child to a nearby general private hospital where he was left in an air-conditioned ward. He added that his condition worsened and his parents were asked to take him to LRH the next day, but he died the same day.
“In fact, the child needs to be kept in the heat, but he remains in the cold room of a private hospital, which causes server complications. There are no pediatric experts in the private hospital.”
Experts say most newborn land is in private sanitation facilities that are not set up
He said that medical teaching institutions (MTIS) including LRH, Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) have nursery wards, but they remain full of competence and even they have to admit multiple beds. Create complications.
The pediatrician said that due to weak immunity, newborns are prone to illness. He added that the Peshawar-based hospital also faces a shortage of several staff members and poor recommendation systems.
He said many experienced doctors are civil servants who are transferred from MTIS, giving children mercy with junior doctors.
Another senior pediatrician said that there was no increase in beds in Peshawar hospitals and the number of patients increased a variety of. “The children were taken to Peshawar and transferred from one hospital to another. He said they landed in a private hospital after failing to obtain space.
Authorities in most hospitals in Peshawar say they cannot admit more patients due to the lack of space.
Pediatricians say children are almost half the population, but don’t have enough beds in hospitals and there are no trained neonatologists who can treat them effectively.
Despite a 15-year recession, the only dedicated 200-bed Children’s Hospital (KICH) is part of the Khyber Institute for Children’s Health (KICH). As a result, pediatricians who are qualified in different provinces work in other provinces or work abroad.
“The construction of the Children’s Hospital has been 90% completed and will accommodate about 20 child experts after the start of operations. The Ministry of Health is actively working to launch it,” they said.
Currently, the nursery in three medical teaching institutions in Peshawar is overcrowded with locked patients, but the shortage of beds and trained staff is damaging their treatment.
The upgrade process for upgrading children’s facilities is too slow, as the nursery at the Bachakhan Medical Complex recently upgraded from 15 beds to 46 beds, and the doctor now receives patients from nearby Buner, Haripur, Nowshera and Attock areas.
However, the situation in Peshawar has not improved, as KTH has 35 nurseries, LRH and HMC 40, which is not enough to accommodate pediatric patients from across the province.
Health experts say the most common health problems in newborns are premature birth, low weight and insufficient oxygen. They added that these issues can be managed by well-trained and well-arranged health workers.
Another pediatrician said the province’s hospitals only have 2,000 children’s beds, while adults have more than 60,000 hospitals. Except for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, there are dedicated children’s hospitals in all provinces. “Children suffer from insufficient beds in hospitals. Poor parents are the most affected because they can’t afford the cost of private hospitals or transfer their children to other provinces,” he said.
Posted in Dawn on September 26, 2025
