Civil hospital runs short of medicines

Karachi: The shortage of medicine in Civil Hospital Karachi has put thousands of lives at stake.

A reliable source of hospital on condition of anonymity said there was acute shortage of medicines in hospital since last 15 days as the stock of medicines had almost ended in healthcare. They said there was dearth of antibiotic medicines in the hospital.

They said crises-like situation had emerged in the hospital as the Sindh finance department had stopped funds for public healthcares across the Sindh province and for that reason provision of medicines had been stopped to patients for the last 15-days. The finance department had stopped the unutilised budget to government hospitals about a month ago and provision of medicines to visiting and admitted patient had been suspended over shortage of medicines especially antibiotic drugs in the hospital.

Resultantly, there was acute shortage of medicines in the hospital and visiting patients were compelled to buy medicines from medicinal stores, they added. The patients were being asked by doctors to buy medicines from private medical stores as these medicines were not available at the hospital pharmacy.

An official pharmacy department said the CHK was facing a severe shortage of medicines leaving no option for patients but to buy medicine from private medical stores. He said only few medicines were available in the stock, while there was acute shortage of antibiotic medicines in the healthcare. He hoped that the situation would improve in month of August with release fiscal year funds allocated for health sector by the finance department.

A number of patients told that they were asked by doctors to buy antibiotic medicines from private medical stores as these medicines were not available in the hospital.

When contacted, CHK Medical Superintendent Prof Muhammad Saeed Qureshi confirmed that the shortage of medicines in the month of July due to end of last year’s drug stock and also because of non-releasing of budget from the finance department. He said the issue of medicines shortage would be resolved soon with the release of annual budget for the hospital.