VEHARI: The district headquarters hospital is facing an acute shortage of life-saving drugs, particularly posing a serious threat to the lives of some 24,000 hepatitis-C patients who had been receiving free medication at the facility, Dawn has learnt on Thursday.

The patients and their attendants told Dawn that they were being told by the doctors at the DHQ hospital to privately buy the life-saving medicines, including injections and kits, as the facility was short of stocks because of funds shortage.

DHQ hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Farooq confirmed that the facility was facing paucity of life-saving drugs. He said the shortage of funds was the main cause of the shortage.

Treatment under control programme suspended

He, however, claimed the medicines would be available during the next few days. He said the hospital had been facing shortage of medicines since the first week of September.

Meanwhile, a number of hepatitis-C patients protested discontinuation of their treatment because of the unavailability of the medicines which were being provided to them free of cost under the Hepatitis Control Programme. They particularly mentioned shortage of Sofosfbuvir, Ribazole and Declatasvir tablets and related injections at the DHQ hospital.

A patient, Naseer Ahmed, who had been receiving medicines from the DHQ hospital for several months under the Hepatitis Control Programme, said he had to go to Nishtar Hospital Multan after his treatment was suspended by the facility one month back because of the drug shortage. Many other patients visiting the hospital daily to get treatment, were being referred to the Nishtar Hospital Multan, he added.

Hepatitis-C Control Programme district in-charge Dr Idrees Bhatti talking to Dawn admitted that presently the treatment was suspended at the DHQ hospital due to the shortage of medicines.

He said that he had written to the health authorities about the shortage and recently sent a reminder to the provincial secretary concerned as well.

He hoped the medicines would be available within the next few days.

He said that hospital had registered 18,000 hepatitis–C patients under the programme from March to September 2018, while over 6,000 others were being covered under a similar programme launched by the Punjab Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI) at the DHQ hospital.

Dr Idrees said that during a survey and blood screening conducted under Hepatitis-C Control Programme in various parts of the district, 60 to 65 per cent of the population was found infected with the disease, especially in the rural areas, including Machiwal, Luddan, Sahoka, Jallah Jeem, 9-11/WB, Garaha More, Tibba Sultanpur and Mitroo.

A hospital source said that applications of more than 1,000 hepatitis-C patients seeking treatment were pending.

He said at least six elderly patients had died during the last one month because of the non-availability of medicines.

Dr Idrees claimed that some 4,800 hepatitis-C patients had recovered after their treatment at the hospital got completed during the last one year.

The patients and their attendants urged the Punjab health department and the Chief Minister Usman Buzdar to order immediate release of funds for the continuation of the programme and medicines supply to the Vehari DHQ hospital.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2018