PESHAWAR, July 14: A reduction announced by the provincial government in the current year's budgetary allocations for two mental hospitals will affect patients, sources said.
The government has allocated Rs16.966 million for the Sarhad Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases in the current year's budget against last year's revised estimates of Rs16.979 million.
A doctor said that most of the patients were extremely poor and could not afford to buy medicines prescribed to them, referring to the major cut in the funds earmarked for purchase of drugs.
In the revised estimates, the allocation for this purpose was Rs3.5 million, but now it has been proposed at Rs2.4 million. The annual budget for the patients' diet has also recorded a decrease of almost Rs400,000 as in the current fiscal the allocation for this head is Rs1.2 million against Rs1.6million for the fiscal 2003-04.
The budget of the Mental Hospital Mansehra has also been reduced. In the previous fiscal, the total expenditure of the hospital was Rs13.543 million, which has been estimated at Rs12.289 million for 2004-05.
A doctor at the Sarhad hospital said that keeping in view the growing number of psychiatric patients the hospitals needed more funds. However, he regretted, the government had slashed the allocation instead, which would obviously affect their services.
He pointed out that the number of hospitalized patients remained between 140 and 150 against its bedding capacity of 105. More than 200 patients visited the OPD regularly, he said. According to statistics obtained by this correspondent, 20,000 patients visited the hospital in 1997, 25,000 in 1998, 28,000 in 1999, 30,000 in 2001, 33,179 in 2002, and 35,000 in 2003.
