MITHI: Once again people complained about terrible shortage of life-saving drugs and indifferent attitude of doctors when the members of a monitoring committee formed by Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday reached Thar to assess the situation in the desert region in the wake of worsening drought conditions and unabated deaths of infants.

Led by provincial secretary for implementation and coordination Riaz Ahmed Siddiqui, the team included Mirpurkhas Commissio­ner Abdul Waheed Shaikh, health department special secretary Hafe­e­zullah Abbasi, Thar District and Sessions Judge Mushtaq Ahmed Kalwar, Thar DC Dr Shahzad Tahir Thaheem and Dr Sono Khanghrani.

When the team visited various wards of the Civil Hospital of Mithi, parents of the ailing children and attendants of adult patients admitted in the only civil hospital of Tharparkar district complained that there was a terrible shortage of life-saving drugs. They said they had to purchase medicines from private medical stores.

The people also deplored that local functionaries of the health department had also stopped the free ambulance service which had been launched to shift bodies to their respective villages or to rush serious patients to the teaching hospitals in Karachi and Hyderabad. The villagers also complained of indifferent attitude of the doctors and paramedics posted at the civil hospital.

Later, the head of the committee travelled to Vakrio village near Islamkot to visit the dried-up wells. The villagers complained that they were facing hardships in the absence of water.

Some of the villagers contended that their wells had gone dry due to coal extraction at Thar coalfield by the mining companies.

Mr Siddiqui directed the DC of Thar and others to provide water to villagers within 15 days by making the RO plants functional and send teams of water experts to determine as to why water table had considerably gone down. He also directed officials to provide drinking water to the villagers.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2019