KARACHI, March 3: All the health facilities falling under the administrative jurisdiction of city government have been experiencing an acute shortage of medicines for the last few months owing to non-procurement of medicines in current fiscal year.

Over 300 health facilities including major hospitals, urban health centres, dispensaries and basic health units fall in the administrative jurisdiction of city government, which are scattered in every nook and corner of the city.

Official sources of the city government said that the non- procurement of medicines for the health facilities was mainly the untimely release of medicine budget by city higher ups as well as the rate contract system adopted by the provincial government for the purchase of medicines.

Liaquatabad Hospital, New Karachi Hospital, Korangi Hospital, Saudabad Hospital, Ibrahim Hyderi and Police Hospital are the few, which suffered badly by scarcity of medicines, according to officials sources.

They said that countless complaints from different health facilities regarding the shortage had been registered with the health department of city government.

They maintained that people were compelled to purchase medicines from private medical stores, which were otherwise available free of cost at government health units. "However, owing to the attitude of city higher ups, who are least bothered to solve people's sufferings, the matter is still lingering on," the sources added.

The medicine purchase committee of the city government had held a series of meetings, but a final decision was still to be taken regarding the requirements of city health units.

It was also learnt that about 45 out of total 300 health units in the city were not sanctioned by the provincial government. Such units were operating without any budget allocations and staff.

Sources pointed out that each time a major part of fund specified for the procurement of medicines was deducted on account of "economy cut", which leaves the department with very meagre amount for purchase.

It is pertinent to note that a meeting of the medicine purchase committee was recently held to go ahead with the task to procure medicines for city government health facilities.

Sources said that the meeting finalized all departmental procedures for procurement of medicines and submitted its conclusions in this regard and the file had been moved to DCO Karachi for final approval. -PPI