ATTOCK, Oct 13: About 1,000 prisoners of the district jail are facing severe hardships because of lack of medical facilities as the Punjab prisoners department has not released medical budget despite demand by the jail authorities, it has been learnt.

Jail sources told Dawn Rs100,000 were provided to the jail for the treatment of jail inmates in July this year which had been exhausted in the last week of September.

After that the jail authorities asked the prisons department to provide remaining portion of medical budget to procure the medicines but so far it had not been provided, causing problems to the prisoners, the sources said.

About Rs250,000 are provided to the jail annually which is not sufficient to meet the needs of the jail inmates, they added.

Unfortunately, the allocated budget is released with delay even on the repeated requests of the authorities to provide it in time, they said.

To make matters worse, majority of the prisoners are suffering from skin, eye, lung and lung diseases and mental stress, blood pressure and hepatitis. The sorry situation has forced the visitors to bring medicines to their relatives on their own.

When contacted, jail Medical Officer Dr Syed Muhammad Ali Shah confirmed that medicine stock had finished last month and said that request had been made to the prisons department for the supply of the medicines. He hoped that the problem would be resolved soon.

Dr Shah said currently medicines and other medical requirements of the sick prisoners were being fulfilled by purchasing them on self-help basis and by some others resources as, he added, patient prisoners could not be left unattended in their sufferings.—Correspondent