11 November 2004	Thursday	27 Ramazan 1425

NAUSHAHRO FEROZE, Nov 10: No medicines have been provided to the Naushahro Feroze Civil Hospital for the current financial year despite allocation of Rs3 million for medicines and Rs0.9 million for dog-bite vaccines in the budget.

It was learnt that some 1,400 patients on average visited the hospital every day for treatment but they were not being provided with medicines.

Talking to this correspondent, Shabir Solangi, Aijaz Makrani, Muradan Memon, Fazal Memon, Akbar Memon, Sitra Solangi, Aree Vistro, Gul Bhutto, Jan Mohammad Mari and other patients complained that hospital authorities were not providing medicines to them and they being poor could not purchase medicines from the market.

Civil hospital medical superintendent Dr Ghulam Rasool Almani said that of the total budget of Rs4 million for medicines, Rs1 million was meant for local purchase and from the remaining amount, medicines were to be purchased at the provincial level.

He, however, said provincial authorities had not supplied medicines to the hospital.

He said patients had been complaining to him for not getting medicines but the hospital had already exhausted the local purchase budget.

Dr Almani said there was Rs1.2 million budget for dog-bite vaccines, out of which the hospital could purchase vaccines from 25 per cent while the rest of vaccines were to be provided by the provincial authorities. He said the hospital had purchased the vaccines from its share but the provincial authorities had not supplied the vaccines. He said last year too, medicines of Rs1.253 million had not been provided to the hospital.

He wondered where the amount had gone because, he claimed, full budget had been released to the EDO, health.

Dr Almani said he had sent letters and reminders to the EDO but to no avail. He said he had also talked to the minister for health who had assured that medicines would be supplied soon but this had not been done.

He admitted that dog-bite cases had increased but said the vaccines, costing Rs1,000 each, could not be provided to every patient as the authorities had not supplied the same to the hospital.

The medical superintendent further said even the Rs4 million yearly budget for medicines was not sufficient to run the hospital smoothly. He said the Dadu Civil Hospital's medicines budget was Rs9 million and the Thatta hospital's budget was Rs8.5 million.

He said the hospital was also facing shortage of X-Ray films due to non-availability of budget.

Dr Almani said the district government had not provided its budget share of Rs0.350 million and the taluka council had not provided Rs0.08 million to the hospital for this year. A Rs0.05 million budget for tuberculosis had also not been provided to the hospital.

Patients, area residents and social welfare organizations have demanded immediate supply of medicines, dog-bite vaccines and X-Ray films to the civil hospital.

They also demanded action against officials responsible for the delay in release of the medicines.