The Nishtar Hospital, Multan (NHM), has stopped providing free hepatitis treatment to new patients coming from cities other than Multan district because of shortage of medicines including injections.
Earlier, this facility was provided to all patients visiting the Hospital under Prime Minister's programme for prevention and control of hepatitis launched in 2005 at a cost of Rs 2.5 billion, and to be completed in five years.
An official said that the Punjab government had asked the NHM administration to treat hepatitis patients only from Multan district. He said that NHM received a limited quota of medicines and injections for free treatment of hepatitis, and added that, to recover completely, hepatitis patients need treatment for six months. He said it had become impossible for NHM to manage the increasing number of patients seeking free treatment. He said that if the Hospital would begin providing medicines to everyone, it could face problems in treating the already registered patients.
He said that NHM officials had conveyed the problem a few days ago to the Health Minister, who said that federal hospitals should not provide free treatment to patients from other areas as the provincial governments had been given funds for it in the budget. The official said that treatment of patients from other cities, already registered with NHM, had been completed. He said that hepatitis medicines and injections, which were provided for six months under the PM programme, had all finished in just one month on treatment of around 1,000 patients.
There is also acute shortage of anti-venom and anti-rabies vaccines in Multan, and people are facing hardships in recovery of victims of snake and dog bite.
Hepatitis patients from areas other than Multan have criticised the Health Ministry for stoppage of free treatment, and demanded its restoration. Some patients have also complained that NHM does not have the facility for the PCR tests of hepatitis. However, the Nishtar Hospital official said that for free treatment, samples for PCR tests were earlier sent to Lahore, but the process took a lot of time. He said that these tests were also done at Noori Hospital, Islamabad, at nominal charges. He said private hospitals charge Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 for such tests, while at Noori hospital the facility was available for only Rs 1,600.