KARACHI, Oct 23: Surgical equipment worth millions of rupees of a defunct DMC-South’s hospital in Lyari has been transferred to other hospitals in the city, it is learnt.

Not only that, medicines worth millions of rupees have also sent to other hospitals without any prior intimation to the Lyari Town office.

After the introduction of the local-bodies system, the administrative control of all the hospitals and maternity homes previously run by the defunct DMC-S in the district had been handed over to the city government.

The Lyari Maternity Home is the oldest service providing hospital in the locality and has been catering to the needs of the poor sections of the population in the area.

In 1988-89, an operation theatre (OT) with latest equipment costing millions of rupees had been built in the hospital on a directive of the then prime minister. A woman surgeon was also exclusively appointed for the hospital.

But the OT section in the hospital had never been allowed to function fully on the pretext of non-availability of technical staff though there was no dearth of such staff.

However, recently all the costly machinery meant for the OT section had been transferred to the Sobhraj Maternity Home with the woman surgeon, and the medicines also sent to other hospitals.

Not only that, the X-ray machine was also shifted to the Edhi Maternity Home and the ambulance was also moved to some other place depriving the patients of an essential services in emergency cases.

Lyari Town Office Nazim Abdul Khaliq Jumma in a protest letter to the Karachi City Government has described the decision as injustice to the people of Lyari and a criminal act on the part of the administrative authorities of the medical department of the defunct DMC-South, which is now under the City District Government’s control.

The Nazim urged the CDG’s medical department authorities to stop discrimination to the people of Lyari and return all the machinery, equipment, medicines and ambulance of the Lyari Maternity Home because all these were provided as per the hospital’s budget.

This oldest maternity home situated on the Mewa Shah Road has been in existence much before the creation of Pakistan and has been providing health-care services to the poor patients of the locality.

But the hospital has always been made victim of neglect. For quite some time, the hospital had been without an RMO and proper medical equipment essential for proper working of a maternity home.

However, in the late ’80s and early ’90s some improvement was witnessed when a former prime minister issued a directive for the construction of an OT section and proper supply of medicines to the hospital.