09 May 2004	Sunday	18 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, May 8: Sindh government's claims to provide health care facilities to the masses can be gauged from the fact that only Rs2.26 per patient per month are being provided to city district government of Karachi to run different public health care institutions in the metropolis.

According to officials, there are seven major hospitals in Karachi being run by the city government and 350 health care units. However, the total amount of budget for these health institutions is Rs59.85 million, which is insufficient to run the health affairs for such a populated city.

Besides, the funds received on monthly basis with deductions was resulting in scarcity of medicines and causing immense hardships to management of these health institutions.

It is worth mentioning here that at least 100 health institutions are running without approval of Schedule of New Expenditure, which is additional burden on existing budget as the arrangements of these health facilities are being made within existing budget grants.

According to an official of the city government, it is becoming hard to run these health institutions with each passing day as the amounts released by the Sindh government are insufficient.

The official regretted that the city government was being blamed for not providing medicines and other equipment at its health facilities. He pointed out that the funds under this head were not being released by the provincial finance department.

Realising the gravity of this situation, he said, the authorities had prepared a detailed plan to meet the expenses of these health institutions.

"A summary has been moved to EDO (Finance) in this regard and he assured to provide the funds for these health institutions in future," he added. -PPI