Approximately 39 posts of pharmacists are lying vacant in the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) while non-qualified employees working as pharmacists are playing with the lives and health of people in the institution, reliable sources in CHK told PPI on Tuesday.
They said there were total 41 posts of pharmacists in the hospital and 31 of them were lying vacant for the last few years. The provincial government could not appoint qualified pharmacists on the vacant posts, they said, adding that only two qualified pharmacists were performing their duties in the institution while rest of the posts were vacant.
They said non-technical employees working as pharmacists were playing with health and lives of people in the hospital. The pharmacists had a very important role in healthcare sector like purchasing medicine, storing, distribution, and maintaining quantity and quality of drugs given to the patients, they said. Unfortunately, these crucial duties were in the hands of unauthorised employees in the healthcare due to shortage of pharmacists, they maintained.
They said people were contracting different infectious diseases due to self-medication and shortage of qualified pharmacists in public sector hospitals. As per rule, posting of one pharmacist on every 50-bed hospital in necessary but due to the lethargy of health department this rule was being fully violated in the government sector hospitals of the city, they added.
Pakistan Pharmacists Association (PPA) Central President Syed Qalb-e-Hasan Rizvi, when contacted, said that pharmacists had an important role to improve healthcare but unfortunately their importance was being ignored in health sector of Sindh province. He said significant number of pharmacists’ posts were lying vacant in Sindh government hospitals across the province.
He said the Punjab government had already recruited pharmacists to fill the shortage in their province but in Sindh the rulers had yet to awake from their deep slumber. Civil Hospital Karachi Additional Medical Superintendent (General) Dr Abdul Qadir Siddiqui was not available for comments.
