HYDERABAD, Jan 26: The only police hospital (25 beds) in the district of Hyderabad is in a bad shape with the 'schedule of a new establishment' pending with the finance department.

This is despite the fact that 12.91 per cent of total police force of Hyderabad district alone has been diagnosed as carriers of hepatitis-B and C during a blood screening campaign organized by the police department.

According to police sources, in the screening and vaccination campaign which started in August 2003, 6,331 policemen and their family members were screened. Of them 817 were found to be carriers of hepatitis B and C; of them 262 are carriers of hepatitis-B, 492 of hepatitis-C and 18 of both hepatitis B and C.

Police authorities launched screening campaign after 57 carriers of hepatitis were referred to the police hospital. Of them, five died due to non-provision of proper medication as they had been diagnosed at a late stage, according to the hospital's medical superintendent Dr Ziauddin Anwar.

After the campaign was launched, three more policemen died of hepatitis, raising the toll to eight, he added. The hepatitis patients were examined only at the hospital and they have to purchase costly drugs on their own.

Apart from Hyderabad, out of 957 police personnel of Kotri taluka, 343 or 35 per cent have been found to be carriers of hepatitis. The remaining force has been vaccinated. Likewise, of 500 personnel of the Police Training College, Shahdadpur, 128 have been diagnosed as carriers of the disease.

According to Dr Anwar, President Gen Pervez Musharraf had directed in 2002 that administrative control of police hospitals in Karachi and Hyderabad, which were currently run by the health department, should be given to police.

The hospital was constructed in 1986 through donations collected through efforts of successive police chiefs. In health department's record it is a dispensary with only three posts of doctors and without any post of paramedic staff. However, 27 police constables, after having been trained, are working there as paramedics.

The police hospital does not receive any funds from the finance department. Since there are no budgetary allocations for the hospital, it is up to the DPO to release funds for purchase of medicines from his meagre discretionary grant. Last fiscal year, he was given only Rs320,000 against the requirement of Rs2.5 million.

Outgoing DPO Moazzam Jah Ansari and incumbent DPO A. D. Khawaja took efforts to get the hospital renovated and upgraded. It is now equipped with a blood bank, physiotherapy unit, ultra-sound machines, x-ray unit, cardiac OPD and dental unit whereas a laboratory is under construction.

Around nine doctors of the city, including surgeon Mohammad Hussain and associate professor Dr Bikha Ram, have been volunteering services for the hospital. "The hospital incurs expenditure of around Rs5.5 million that is to be approved with the SNE by the finance department.

Currently we do not get fund even for purchase of broom and are running the hospital through donations," observed the MS. However, he added that donations could never be consistent.

Besides police of Hyderabad district, the hospital caters to the need of personnel and family members of the Anti-Corruption Establishment, Frontier Constabulary, Sindh Reserve Police and Motorway Police.