Non-Payment of Dues – ASH contractors threaten to stop oxygen supply

By Our Staff Reporter

KARACHI- Contractors supplying oxygen to Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) have threatened to discontinue supply of the gas to the hospital if their outstanding dues were not cleared within a week. 

According to contractors, ASH management owed Rs10 million to them under the head of oxygen supply.

Admitting that ASH management has failed to clear the outstanding dues of oxygen supplying contractors due to financial crunch being faced by KMC, sources apprehended that in case the contractors stopped supply oxygen to the hospital, the worst sufferers would be the patients requiring ventilators, besides routine operational work of other departments would also be hampered.

They said that ASH, one of major teaching hospitals of the city, was already facing a number of problems in the wake of KMC’s financial difficulties. “We have already stopped supplying meals to patients and facing shortage of medicines,” the sources added.

KMC’s Senior Director (Medical Services) Dr Salma Kausar could not be contacted for her version as she was busy in a meeting.