PESHAWAR: More than 30 district headquarters hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are facing an acute shortage of essential medicines and unavailability of doctors and other staff members and have dysfunctional bathrooms, to the suffering of patients, according to a report of an independent monitoring unit.
It also highlighted “habitual absenteeism” among hospital employees, including medics, and noted that the cleanliness level wasn’t up to the mark.
“These factors have led to a downtrend in patient flow in 32 district hospitals, which are the biggest health facilities in the province,” said the IMU report.
It also revealed that only 45pc of the 174 essential medicines required by patients, including lifesaving ones, were available at those hospitals, while syringes and infusion devices were also in short supply.
Health dept decides to act against absentee medics, say officials
The report declared that just one DHQ hospital in the province had 80pc of medicines wanted by visitors. According to it, the presence of 200 basic medicines is also “below the benchmark” as they total 41pc.
Only three hospitals have 90pc of the 60 essential medical equipment functional.
The report said in May, 390 doctors were found absent from duty, with 228 being away without formal permission and prior information to their respective medical superintendents.
It also said that none of those hospitals had met the 90pc cleanliness target set by the health department, while the standard of cleanliness deteriorated in 12 hospitals in May compared to April.
The report said 81pc of the toilets in DHQ hospitals were functioning properly, while the rest were closed and unusable for patients.
It also pointed out under-utilisation of funds released by the department.
Official sources said that the health department had decided to act against absentee doctors.
They, however, said many of those medics didn’t attend duty for a long time but escaped action due to their strong political or bureaucratic connections.
The sources claimed in many hospitals, doctors continued to do private practice at their clinics located just a stone’s throw from their respective hospitals but drew salaries regularly.
They added that many suppliers were notorious for providing substandard goods to the hospitals unlike what they actually showed at the time of securing bids.
The sources said most suppliers were connected with local pharmaceutical companies which supplied low-quality drugs, equipment and surgical disposable items despite promising to provide the items manufactured by multinationals.
They added that the goods from local and foreign companies had vast differences in prices and efficacy.
The sources said there was a huge profit margin for local suppliers compared to the multinationals.
They said that the health department had over 2,500 health facilities with 60,000 employees but patient flow continued to decline, so the district health centres referred patients to Peshawar’s hospitals, making it hard for the latter to cater for serious patients.
They said the health adviser had begun acting against absentee employees but actions remained ineffective to the misery of patients.
The officials said the independent monitoring unit has been spotlighting these issues continuously but the perpetrators had yet to face the music.
Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2025
