KARACHI, July 12: Just 13 of the 36 maternity homes run by the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) are functional, while 61 healthcare facilities remain inoperative because of financial and administrative difficulties.

This was announced by the executive district officer (health) of the CDGK, Dr A.D. Sajnani, at the Sindh Government Children Hospital on Thursday. He said that the non-functional maternity homes lacked staff and equipment while the healthcare units suffered because of a ban on the appointment of doctors and paramedical staff, as well as the lack of funding. However, he added that the provincial government has allocated Rs20 million for this purpose in its new budget.

Mr Sajnani said that work on five morgues had been initiated and the tenders would shortly be finalised. These will be established on the premises of the New Karachi, Abbasi Shaheed and Ibrahim Hyderi hospitals, Landhi Medical Complex and one additional location that is yet to be decided, and will provide free-of-cost cold-storage facilities to 100 bodies each. He added that there is currently no such facility in the government sector, and the Edhi Foundation’s morgue is often over-loaded.

Confirming the his department has stopped issuing new licenses to medical stores for the sale of drugs, Mr Sajnani said that the special secretary (public health) of the Sindh Health Department has verbally requested this. “There is tremendous pressure from applicants but we are not in a position to issue new licenses, in line with a decision taken at the Sindh Governor’s House a couple of months ago,” he said. On March 24, the governor of Sindh, Dr Ishrat-ul-Ibad, ordered a province-wide ban on new licenses for medical stores or chemists until a strategy is evolved to enforce the Federal Drug Act.

Taking note of the reported sale of fake drugs, Dr Ibad had asked the relevant quarters to prepare a strategy in a week’s time. Asked about this, Dr Sajnani said that he had been told that a draft policy had been prepared by the provincial health department and had been passed on to the law department for vetting.