LAHORE: Punjab’s largest Mayo Hospital, Lahore, is in financial straits as its liabilities have crossed Rs1 billion mark for the first time.

The disturbing reports emerging from the hospital warn that the patient care would aggravate further in coming weeks at the leading public sector teaching hospital of the city if a “dose of Rs1.1bn” is not injected to address the deficit of the institute.

One of the major reasons behind the situation is said to be ‘discrimination’ meted out by the Punjab government while allocating annual budget to the 150-year-old hospital to meet the emergency needs.

The financial crisis hit the Mayo Hospital when it appeared that its annual budget (as per bed strength) was even less than 11 other state-run hospitals of the city.

The report says the annual per bed budget of the 150-bed government Kot Khwaja Saeed Hospital, Lahore, is many times more than that of the Mayo Hospital.

Report suggests per bed allocation is far less than that of 11 city hospitals

The report suggests that Mayo Hospital is even bigger in designated bed strength, patient load, infrastructure, human resource and healthcare services than 11 other teaching hospitals of Lahore and those functioning in other parts of the province.

It has also an edge on other hospitals because the Mayo has been serving the humanity since 1871.

The comparative analysis of the 12 government teaching institutes of the city unveils the scale of the financial crisis.

The report says the companies and the contractors have stopped supplying life-saving medicines, oxygen gas, equipment and other resources to the hospital when its outstanding amount crossed Rs1bn.

Talking about a life-saving item, the report says the hospital is facing a serious challenge of acute shortage of oxygen for critical patients as the contractor has asked the institute to pay first Rs50 million outstanding amount to get more supply/services.

Similarly, other companies and firms are also putting same conditions for the hospital which houses 72 wards, 60 operating theatres, multi-storey buildings and towers providing specialised healthcare to a large number of patients.

The report titled “Comparison of budget with other institutes/hospitals during financial year 2021-22” reflects that 11 government hospitals got 10 to 78 per cent more budget [according to bed strength] as compared to Mayo Hospital.

According to the analysis, the government has allocated Rs8.2bn annual budget for the Mayo Hospital which houses 2,484 beds, the largest in number than any other public sector hospital of Punjab.

Of this amount, just Rs3.3m were allocated as per bed strength while the bed occupancy in the hospital increased to 114pc.

On the other hand, 30-bed Punjab Dental Hospital got Rs15.1m as per bed strength out of the total budget [Rs453m], around 78pc more than that of the Mayo.

Similarly, the Kot Khwaja Saeed Hospital houses only 149 beds and it got Rs8.5m (per bed) from the total allocated annual budget of Rs1.2bn, 61pc higher than that of the Mayo.

The 547-bed Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) got Rs7.7m budget (per bed) which was 57pc more than the Mayo. Its annual budget was Rs4.2bn.

The 1,500-bed Jinnah Hospital received 34pc (per bed) more than the Mayo from its annual budget Rs7.4bn, 1,600-bed Services Hospital 10pc more from Rs5.9bn allocation, 954-bed Sir Ganga Ram Hospital 20pc more from total budget Rs3.9bn, 300-bed government teaching hospital Shahdara 10pc higher out of total budget Rs1.1bn, 235-bed Lady Willingdon Hospital 15pc more from Rs913m outlay, 195-bed Government Nawaz Sharif Yakki Gate Hospital 34pc more out of the Rs977m allocation, while 164-bed Government Mian Munshi Hospital received 11pc more than the Mayo Hospital from its annual budget of Rs612m.

The Mayo Hospital administration has demanded funds amounting to Rs1.1bn through supplementary grant to steer it out of crises.

It has requested the government to increase the budgetary allocation from Rs8.2bn to Rs15.3bn as per the financial burden which increased over the years.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2022