KARACHI: Amid strong reaction by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) and various other organisations to the increase in service charges at Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) hospitals, the provincial government gave a go-ahead to the corporation’s proposal to raise the charges, it emerged on Saturday.

A spokesman for the KMC confirmed to Dawn that the corporation had received a notification from the provincial government’s health department permitting it to increase charges for its medical facilities for different services to ensure that the KMC was able to generate its own resources to run the hospitals.

“The increase was long overdue as it is being introduced after more than 15 years in our hospitals,” said the spokesman in response to a question without explaining why they had gone for such a drastic increase at once instead of raising it gradually because hundreds of thousands of low-income people who could not afford high charges at the private hospitals would be overburdened.

He said the raise was not that high as was being mentioned in a section of the press, adding in the same breath that without such an increase the KMC’s 15 large hospitals and several other health facilities would not be able to survive.

“For example, we have to provide meals for around 1,700 beds in the hospitals three times a day for which we charge just Rs5. Since the KMC has no major resources of its own to generate funds it has to raise the service charges a bit to keep such public service facilities running,” he said.

“It is no exaggeration to say that our hospitals are themselves in an intensive care unit and we are frantically trying to keep them afloat,” he said.

Officials in the provincial government said that many of the city’s 257 small hospitals and dispensaries were being run by Karachi’s six district municipal corporations (DMCs) where no service charges had been increased.

The sources said that after severe criticism to the KMC’s proposal to raise service charges, the proposed increase in some heads which was unrealistically high had been brought down to a realistic level so that they could be acceptable to the general public.

The exorbitant increase in medical charges would affect an overwhelming majority of low-income people who visit the KMC-run health facilities. In an earlier proposal, Rs600-300 had been suggested for a private room, from Rs5 per day. Now, the officials said the charges would be up to Rs100 per day — still a 20-fold increase.

The KMC spokesman said the diet charges for patients would be increased from Rs5 to Rs25 — a 400pc increase, but much smaller than the earlier proposal, which recommended Rs150 — 3,000 per cent more than the exiting rate.

Similarly, the KMC is reducing its earlier proposal for Rs300 as one-time admission fee for a private room to Rs100-150 from the existing Rs10.

The KMC officials said that despite the fact they had got approval from the provincial government to the increase in charges for dozens of services its health facilities offered, they were still reviewing the raise before finally putting them into effect.

A KMC official said that they were hard pressed to increase the charges. “The sources of funds like octroi have already been snatched from municipalities, leaving us with just two options: increase charges or request the provincial government to run our hospitals,” he said.

PMA protest

Meanwhile, the PMA expressed serious concern over the exorbitant increase in service charges at the KMC hospitals, dispensaries and maternity homes.

“It is quite evident that the poorest of the poor usually visit these facilities, and as a matter of principle the government is responsible to provide health services to the poor free of cost,” said PMA’s secretary general, Dr Mirza Ali Azhar, said in a press statement issued on Thursday.

He demanded that “this cruel increase in the charges” should be taken back immediately and a quality health service be provided to all poor and needy patients without any discrimination as was guaranteed in the constitution.

Published in Dawn, August 31st , 2014