- Patients suffer at hospitals being run under KMC including Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Karachi Institute of Hearth Diseases, Rafiq Shaheed Hospital, Sobhraj Maternity Hospital and Spenser Eye Hospital owing to shortage of medicines due to budgetary constraints
KARACHI
PPI
Shortage of medicines has badly affected the healthcare delivery system in hospitals being run under Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) which has compelled poor patients to purchase expensive medicines from private medical stores.
An official of KMC requesting not to be named said there was acute shortage of medicines in healthcare centres including hospitals, maternity homes and dispensaries being run by KMC due to the lack of budget.
The admitted and visiting OPD patients have been asked to buy prescribed medicines from private medical stores while the supply of meals to the admitted patients has also stopped in these healthcare centres.
An official said that over dozen healthcare centres being run by KMC including Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Karachi Institute of Hearth Diseases, Rafiq Shaheed Hospital, Sobhraj Maternity Hospital and Spenser Eye Hospital in different parts of city are facing acute shortage of medicines due to non-release of budget so far.
The patients were being asked by doctors to buy medicines, drips and syringes from the private medical stores as these medicines were not available in hospital pharmacies. The contractors have also suspended the supply of meals to patients in these healthcare centres over non-clearance of bills. He said patients are provided only cheap medicines that are available in stores. He said the KMC high-ups were fully aware about the issue but they do not have funds to buy medicines.
Visiting patients of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital complained that they have been asked to buy medicines from private medical stores. They said how poor patients can buy such expensive medicines from private medical stores.
KMC Media Management Director Bashir Khan Sadozai when contacted said there was shortage of funds in KMC as the provincial government had not released the budget so far. He said KMC employees have also been deprived their salaries of last three months due to the shortage of funds. He hoped that situation would be improved in upcoming months in KMC run healthcare centres as provincial authorities release the budget.
