Poverty-hit people deprived of medicine in many government hospitals

The poverty hit people are deprived of medicine in many government hospitals as contractors have stopped supply to many hospitals for non-payment of dues by the government. The disruption of supply, which could create serious problems at hospitals, was mainly as a result of the medicines bills remained unapproved during the financial year 2011-2012, sources said.
Sources said medicine suppliers had warned of the government to knock the door of Sindh High Court if their bills of payments were not cleared by Sindh government in next few days. Sources said that payments to contractors were not made due to dispute over undue gains among the departments concerned of the Sindh government.
Sources told Business Recorder that contractors had stopped supplying medicines to Sindh Government Hospital New Karachi, Sindh Government Hospital New Karachi, Sindh Government Children Hospital and Urban Health Care Centre New Karachi. They said the Sindh government had to pay millions of rupees to the contractors against the medicines they supplied during the year 2011-2012.
The poor patients visiting these hospitals are compelled to purchase prescribed medicines from private stores, causing hardships for them. "Doctors just overlook the patient here and write medicines on a chit, whom we have to buy from the nearby medical stores as the hospital staffs told us none of them are available here," a patient complained.
They said visiting patients in OPD as well as admitted patients are buying medicines from private medical stores as the hospital administration has failed to give them relief. OPD patients informed that due to unavailability of medicines in the hospital, they were buying medicines from private medical stores.
"How a poor patient buy such an expensive medicine, a patient questioned who failed to get prescribed medicine from the pharmacy, saying that a poor only visit government hospital while the well-off used to opt private hospitals for their treatment.
OPD patients said they failed to get some essential medicines from the facility. Mohammed Hussain, suffering from diabetes, said he had been visiting hospital pharmacy for last five days but could not manage get medicine prescribed by the doctor of the facility.
"Whenever I approached pharmacist after waiting for hours in queues for getting prescribed medicine, he asked me to come very next day. I could not manage to acquire medicines despite passing five days", anguished Mohammad Hussain said. Sources also informed that more than 250 health centres including hospitals, maternity homes and dispensaries being run under Karachi Metropolitan Corporation had not been provided budget for the last six to 10 months.