KARACHI, March 28: All government hospitals in districts and talukas will have managing committees or boards within 15 days. This was said by Senior Minister for Health, Syed Sardar Ahmed, during question hour in the Sindh Assembly here on Wednesday. He said the proposed managing committees will be formed through an ordinance with local people to be nominated as their members to monitor the working of respective hospitals.

Replying to a question of Hameedullah Khan Advocate, Sardar Ahmed, on behalf of the labour and industries minister, Adil Siddiqui, explained in detail the procedure for purchase of medicines for SESSI hospitals. He said the procedure is strictly followed in accordance with the Provincial Employees Social Security (Procurement of supplies and property) Regulations 1967. He said Rs7.2 million was spent on the purchase of medicines for the period from 1-7-2004 to 30-6-2005.

Sardar Ahmed said all purchases are made through tenders, but a procedure is also followed in respect of direct purchases. He said life saving drugs are first procured through bulk purchases.

Replying to a supplementary question, the health minister said the SESSI hospitals have anti-venom and rabbies vaccines and provide them whenever needed to secured workers. He said the government is considering setting up a laboratory for their production here.

To another supplementary question, Sardar Ahmed said that there is only one burns hospital in Sindh which is in Karachi where patients from all over the province are brought for treatment. He said this is a specialised unit.

Answering various supplementaries, the minister informed the House that the health department was conducting an inquiry into the supply of spurious and expired drugs.

Recently, he said, medicines worth Rs15 million were seized along with freshly printed labels which were to be pasted on bottles of spurious and expired drugs.

He appealed to the people that while purchasing medicines, to ensure that these are not expired and also obtain a receipt for the medicine purchased because receipts for spurious drugs are not issued.

Replying to a question of the same member, Sadar Ahmed informed that there were 20 Technical Training Centres functioning in the province.

He said during the period from 1-7-2004 to 30-6-2005, equipment costing Rs9.7 million was purchased for the Technical Training Centre (Male) Landhi, Karachi. He said for other technical training centres, the requisite equipment was purchased in earlier year.

To a supplementary question, he said about 6,000 trainees are undergoing various courses of two months to a year at the technical training centres. He said they are being trained in 25 to 30 different trades.—APP