GUJRAT, Jan 19: The emergency wards of DHQ Hospital, Gujrat Maternity Hospital and Kharian THQ Hospital have been doing without medicines for the last four months, it was learnt.

Information gleaned by this correspondent revealed that the government had ordered provision of free medical care in public hospitals. However, patients of the DHQ Hospital, Gujrat Maternity Hospital and Kharian THQ Hospital have been arranging medicines on their own.

It is pertinent to note that Zakat assistance is also not available in these hospitals.

According to an estimate, some 300 to 400 patients daily visit the DHQ Hospital, which has an annual budget of Rs7 million for the purchase of medicines. The hospital authorities had recently informed the district government that the hospital was only able to provide medicines worth Rs7 to every patient. For Rs7, only a few painkillers could be provided to patients, a doctor said, adding that the medical stores of the hospital were empty at a time when an amount of Rs5 million was lying idle in hospital’s account.

According to inside sources, the situation had developed due to a rift between the recently transferred EDO (health) Syed Abid Shah, DHO Dr Sami, Accountant Luqman and DCO Agha Nadeem. All the transferred officials had been replaced with new ones except for the accountant who had got his transfer orders cancelled and the DCO whose post was lying vacant.

A doctor told Dawn that District Nazim Chaudhry Shafaat Hussain wanted to purchase quality medicines and had directed the MS of the hospital to send a summary indicating good pharmaceutical companies and the needed quantity of various medicines.

However, the district government was unable to purchase medicines when the experts informed it that Rs 40million were needed to purchase quality medicines.

Similarly, some doctors believe that more than paucity of funds, mismanagement and rifts among the authorities concerned is responsible for the current shortage of medicines in the other two public hospitals. According to them, absence of medicines in these hospitals could become life-threatening in extreme emergencies.

Probe ordered: The local DHQ Hospital’s medical superintendent on Sunday ordered a probe against the doctor for giving wrong treatment to a patient, Dawn learnt here on Sunday.

Rizwan alleged in his complaint that Dr Iqtadar Baig had operated upon his father’s healthy left leg instead of the right fractured leg.

The MS constituted a three-member probe team of Dr Ikram, Dr Shahzad Pervaiz and Dr Tahir Naveed.