KARACHI: Health Minister Azra Pechuho on Monday informed the provincial assembly that the government had approached the registrar of the Sindh High Court to seek direction regarding procurement of medicines required for public sector hospitals since all sessions judges, who had been part of the procurement committees, did not desire to be part of them.

Dr Pechuho spoke in detail after Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Rabia Azfar raised the issue of non-availability of life-saving drugs for thalassaemia patients at the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi.

She said more than 700 such patients would receive such medicines to control iron levels from the CHK, but for around eight months the hospital was not providing the required drugs to the poor patients and their families.

She said she also spoke to the Baitul Maal in Sindh and Islamabad that, according to her, funded those drugs yet, the drugs could not be provided to the patients.

She demanded that the provincial health department launch an investigation into the matter.

Dr Pechuho said it would take time for the central committee on procurement to purchase those drugs as per the required standard operating procedures. However, the judiciary had slapped a ban on local purchases.

A PTI lawmaker raises the issue of non-availability of life-saving drugs for thalassaemia patients

Before the ban, said the minister, medical superintendents of the government-run hospitals were authorised to procure 15 per cent of the total drugs.

She added as per instructions of the SHC, procurement committees for local purchases had been formed with the sessions judges concerned part of them. However, “the judges do not desire to participate in such committees”.

“We have sent a letter to the registrar of the SHC, in which the court was informed about the state of affairs because of shortage of important drugs in the government-run hospitals, and [we] have sought direction [of the SHC] to guide about an alternative solution to the issue,” said the health minister.

In the letter, she added, such committees under the divisional commissioners could be formed to make available the required medicines as the matter was attached to the very health of the general public.

Opposition Leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi suggested that the whole house should draft a resolution in which the court should be requested to solve the issue.

Deputy Speaker Rehana Laghari said no such resolution could be moved in the house in which such a request was directed towards the court.

Mr Naqvi, however, said the matter involved human lives on which everyone should join in.

Minister Pechuho said the SHC registrar had received the letter and she was assured of a response in a few days.

Call to formulate rules of business of PA legislation

Earlier, after introduction of The Sindh Women Agricultural Workers Bill, 2019, the leader of the opposition suggested the issue was highly important and the legislation should be considered by a committee before being formally moved for consideration in the house.

He complained that business rules of none of the bills, which had been passed by the house in the past one year, had been formulated.

He said it was easy to pass a bill, but laws could only be effective if they were duly implemented.

He referred to the bad blood between the treasury and opposition benches that had been affecting the whole legislative process since long.

He accused the treasury benches of not showing positive gestures vis-à-vis working of the business advisory committee of the house while the issue of the Sindh Public Accounts Committee remained unresolved.

Because of a boycott by the three major opposition parties in the house, the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party had swept the election of the PAC with its chairman and most members belonging to the ruling party.

Mr Naqvi said the issue could be resolved if either chairmanship was given to the treasury benches and majority of members to the opposition or vice versa. “Else, we will remain uninterested in the house and put our point of view outside the assembly,” he added.

Information Minister Saeed Ghani said the government had started framing rules of business of the laws passed by the assembly recently. In fact, he added, business rules of two such laws had formally been approved by the cabinet in its meeting held before the day’s proceedings began.

He made it clear that the government would not hand the PAC over to the opposition.

MMA lawmaker objects to birth spacing programme

On a point of order, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Abdul Rasheed objected over the holding of a programme on birth spacing organised by the Dow University of Health Sciences terming the event in conflict with religion.

Health Minister Pechuho said the issue had nothing to do with any other thing than the fact that such events were being organised for awareness and importance of contraceptives.

She said the programme was organised for the students of the DUHS who studied medical science with the objective to inform them about the alarming ratio of deaths of mothers and newborns.

She said a healthy and better life was a fundamental right of women.

PTI’s Imran Shah said such events should be held privately.

Dr Pechuho said the issue was part of gynaecology, which many medical students studied and went on to get expertise in. She said there was no harm in creating awareness about contraceptives and lady health workers were creating the same awareness in their areas.

She said because of lack of awareness on the matter, many women put their life in danger by opting for illegal abortions.

Question Hour

Earlier, Public Health Engineering Minister Shabbir Bijarani in response to a question of Grand Democratic Alliance’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi said that 86 water supply and drainage schemes in district Dadu were functional while remaining 77 schemes were not functioning due to damage caused in floods and rains in 2010 and 2011.

He said the schemes had been taken through rehabilitation of non-functional water supply and drainage scheme in phase-I at the cost of Rs529 million and phase-II at the cost of Rs4.01 billion. He said phase-I would be completed by June next year.

To another question furnished by the same lawmaker, the minister denied that the Misri Shah reverse osmosis plant in Mithi was providing saline water.

He added such reports were “entirely incorrect and misleading”.

“The project is successfully treating the saline water and providing safe drinking water for the inhabitants of Mithi.”

Replying to a calling-attention notice by Adeeba Hasan, the health minister said there was no shortage of medicines at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases.

Former education minister Sardar Shah responded to another notice by MMA’s Rasheed in which he said furniture for the primary schools run by the government would be made available as ample budgetary allocations had been made for it.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2019