PESHAWAR: The shortage of beds for neonates has been compelling people to admit their newborns to ill-equipped private hospitals in Peshawar and elsewhere in the province, according to health experts.
“As districts have few nursery wards due to which patients are being shifted to Peshawar where shortage of beds has become a serious issue. As a result, patients land in private hospitals where specialised services are not available,” a paediatrician told this scribe. He said that except a few private hospitals, others did not have paediatricians or neonatologists but they admitted patients to make money.
He said that recently a patient was taken to Lady Reading Hospital where all the 40 beds were occupied and parents took the child to a nearby general private hospital where he was kept in air-conditioned ward. His condition deteriorated and the next day his parents were asked to bring him to LRH but he died the same day, he added.
“Actually, the child required to be kept in warm place but he remained in cold room in private hospital which caused server complications. The private hospital has no child specialist,” said the paediatrician.
Experts say most of newborns land in ill-equipped private health facilities
He said that medical teaching institutions (MTIs) including LRH, Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) had nursery wards but they always remained full to the capacity and even they had to admit multiple neonates on same beds that also created complications.
The paediatrician said that newborns easily fell ill due to weak immunity. Peshawar-based hospitals were also faced with severe shortage of staff and poor referral system, he added.
He said that many experienced doctors, who were civil servants, were transferred from MTIs, leaving children at the mercy of junior doctors.
Another senior paediatrician said that there had been no increase in beds in Peshawar’s hospitals whereas the number of patients had increased manifold. “Children are brought to Peshawar and they are referred from one hospital to another. After failure to get space, they land in private hospitals, he said.
Authorities in most of the Peshawar-based hospitals say that they can’t admit more patients due to lack of space.
Paediatricians say that children are almost half of the population but there are neither enough beds for them in hospitals, nor trained neonatologists to treat them effectively.
The only dedicated 200-bed children hospital, part of Khyber Institute of Child Health (KICH), is yet to see light of the day despite the lapse of 15 years. As a result, paediatricians having qualification in different sub-specialties are working in other provinces or have gone abroad.
“The children hospital, the construction of which has been completed 90 per cent, will accommodate about 20 child specialists after starting operations. Health department is actively working to launch it,” they said.
Presently, nursery units at Peshawar’s three medical teaching institutions are overcrowded with patients round the clock, but the shortage of beds and trained staff is compromising their treatment.
The process of upgradation of child health facilities was too slow as nursery ward at Bacha Khan Medical Complex, Swabi, was recently upgraded from 15 to 46 beds, which according to doctors, now receive patients from the nearby Buner, Haripur, Nowshera and Attock districts.
However, situation in Peshawar is yet to improve as KTH has 35 nursery beds, LRH and HMC 40 each, which are not sufficient to accommodate child patients coming from the whole province.
Health experts said that most common health issues among neonates were premature birth, low weight and oxygen deficiency. Those issues were manageable through trained and well-equipped health workers, they added.
Another paediatrician said the province’s hospitals had just 2,000 beds for children compared to more than 60,000 for adults. Except, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, all the provinces had dedicated children hospitals. “Children suffer due to shortage of beds in hospitals for them. Poor parents are the most affected people as they couldn’t afford cost of private hospitals or shifting their children to other provinces,” he said.
Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2025
