SAHIWAL: Public complaints have surfaced against the lack of free medicines for the outpatient department (OPD) patients at the Sahiwal Teaching Hospital (STH) for the past few months, compromising their health and medical treatment.

Sources say the hospital management has been repeatedly giving warnings to the higher authorities to address the issue but the medicine distribution flow remains low at 60/70 per cent at the hospital store. This means that out of hundreds of OPD slips, only 70pc of patients receive free medicines.

Report said the hospital, affiliated with the Sahiwal Medical College, received more than 2,000 to 2,500 patients in its OPD daily. However, for the past several months, patients have been expressing concerns about provision and dispensation of free medicines at the hospital medical store located near the emergency ward.

Dr Usama, the president of the local chapter of the Young Doctors Association, mentioned that shortage of free medicine often created awkward situations for the young doctors working in the OPD and emergency ward as patients became angry with the doctors who wrote prescriptions on the OPD slips. The medicines’ non-availability raised a question mark over the doctor’s efficiency, he said.

Sources close to the situation told Dawn on condition of anonymity that Azmat Mahmood, secretary Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Department, had recently written a letter expressing displeasure at the dispensation of free medicine to OPD patients.

The hospital budget data revealed the annual medicine demand submitted to the provincial authorities for the 2024-25 was around Rs2bn but the hospital actually received medicines worth only Rs430m.

Medical Superintendent Dr Nisar Ahmed told Dawn that the hospital management was working to improve the medicine flow and added that medical store currently had four counters to handle the OPD patients. Due to the rush of patients, many of them would get medicine from private medical stores outside the hospital gates. But the MS assured that the management would increase the number of counters from four to 10 to serve more patients at a time.

Mr Ahmed also noted that nephrology patients mostly opted to take medicine from outside. Sources added the hospital store did not have stock medicine related to eye, psychiatric, and dermatology patients. As a result, these patients with the OPD slips were not entertained at the hospital store.

The MS claimed that the dispensation system would improve in the coming days and immediate action would be taken to rectify the situation.

Prof Dr Imran Hasan, the principal of the Sahiwal Medical College, was contacted through messages and calls for his version but he did not respond.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2025