LARKANA, Oct 23: The adviser to Sindh chief minister on health, Noman Saigal, has said there are thousands of ghost employees in the department and executive district officers (health) and the medical superintendents of the hospital are providing shelter to them.

While talking to a group of journalists during a visit to Larkana on Tuesday, he said that action would be taken against senior officials who were providing protection to ghost employees.

At the rural health centre of Rohri, 23 employees out of a total of 90 were found to be absent and action was taken against them.

He said that the deputies and additional secretary (technical) were not informing him about the development progress of the department; therefore, it had been decided to remove the additional secretary.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the current budgetary provisions for the health sector, he said that efforts were underway to correct financial matters.

He disclosed that under the AIDS control programme, an amount of $8 million had been donated by the funding agencies but the director of the programme had kept him in the dark about it.

The adviser said that the government had not provided staff to the Chandka Medical College in accordance with the requirement of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council ever since the college was set up in 1973.

He said that to overcome this problem, professors possessing domicile of this district would be posted on rotation basis.

He said pharmaceutical companies were being short-listed to ensure quality medicines’ supply to hospitals, and added that bank guarantees would be required from the companies to observe transparency while placing orders.

He said that private medical centres would be monitored and the performance of drug inspectors would also be scrutinized as they were involved in corruption.