RAWALPINDI, Jan 7: The emergency wards of the city’s three autonomous hospitals are without medicines owing to critical shortage of funds, sources said.

They said the hospitals had not purchased drugs during the past six months.

The crisis is the worst of its kind in years, a doctor said, adding that these hospitals had, somehow, been managing to provide free emergency cover through all thick and thin before the installation of the board of governors.

The absence of medicines at these wards could become life- threatening in cases of extreme emergencies, doctors said.

The sources said the situation resulted owing to a huge backlog of liabilities to the tune of Rs10 million. This amount has to be paid for the supplies procured during last fiscal year.

However, some doctors believe that more than paucity of funds, the mismanagement on the part of the board of governors and administrations is responsible for the current situation.

The government’s instructions call for providing 100 per cent free medical care at the public hospitals. However, now the patients have to arrange their own medicine from the market to get emergency treatment. To add to the agony of the deserving patients, Zakat assistance is not available at two of the three hospitals.

The worst hit of the autonomous hospitals is Rawalpindi General Hospital. It has to pay Rs25 million under the head of utilities. “In this situation, it is difficult to provide even a tablet of simple pain killer to the patients,” a doctor at the hospital said.

The patients at the casualty wards criticized the attitude of the hospital administrations. No one from the administration has ever visited the patients and explained to them the difficult situation, Imran, attending to his grandfather at the Holy Family Hospital, said. “We have been hearing that BoGs are being brought in to improve the situation, but if this is the improvement, we are better off without it,” he added.

The sources said the executive committee of the autonomous hospitals, in view of the precarious situation, had created a Rs10 million revolving fund so that drugs could be provided at highly discounted rates to all the patients in the hospitals, instead of giving nothing at all.

However, the plan was later rejected owing to strong resistance from some members of the BoG.

It may be recalled that Punjab governor Lt-Gen Khalid Maqbool (retired) had announced a Rs20 million grant few months ago for supplying free medicines to the poor patients at these hospitals. Furthermore, the former health minister, Dr Mehmood Chaudhary, at an official briefing before leaving his office, had stated that funds provided to the hospitals for provision of free medicines had been doubled by the Punjab government.

Hospitals’ officials, when asked for comments, accepted that medicines were not available in the emergency wards. However, they said the situation would be soon rectified.