HYDERABAD, Feb 21: Shortage of medicines in government healthcare facilities in Sindh due to piecemeal release of drug budget has resulted in sufferings of poor patients.
This was stated by Pakistan Medical Association provincial president Dr Noor Mohammad Memon while talking to this correspondent here on Friday.
He said administrative setups at the healthcare facilities had been shuffled in such a way that almost at all levels, junior officers had been placed over their seniors on personal likes and dislikes or for other considerations in violations of service rules and discipline.
He said the authorities were not awarding timely promotions to doctors and were not making proper postings.
Dr Memon regretted though a good number of B-20 posts were lying vacant, officers of B-19 who had become due for promotions to B-20 five years back, had not only been deprived of their right to be promoted till date but had also been sidelined.
He said even the slot of the Sindh health director-general had been lying vacant for about one month.
He said a controversy over new pay scales and move-over system also needed a prompt attention of the authorities as the pay scales introduced in 2001 and given retrospective effect from 1994 had created ambiguities.
The PMA leader said the Sindh finance department in consultation with the federal finance division issued a clarification after public demands on July 23, 2002, stating the employees, who had reached at the maximum of pay scales on Dec 1, 2000, were entitled to move-over to next higher scale from Dec 1, 2001, only for the purpose of fixation of pay.
He said all other departments had provided relief to their employees but the health department issued a partial list of B-18 employees about a year back, keeping the rest of them in waiting.
He said the disparity between the sanctioned strength of posts had resulted in overcrowding in choice heath facilities and shortage of medical and paramedical staff in others.
Dr Memon said the Hyderabad Services Hospital was the only health facility for government servants in Sindh after Karachi.
However, he regretted that the hospital had no posts of specialists and it was not offering indoor services even after more than 35 years of its establishment. On the contrary, he added, the hospital had several administrative posts.
He complained employees and pensioners requiring specialists' advice and indoor treatment were referred to major and tertiary hospitals where they were meted out step-motherly treatment.
He stressed the need for providing indoor and operation theatre facilities at the services hospital.
The Sindh PMA president said the tendency to shift responsibility to others as to who would provide relief, remove anomalies and streamline the working of health delivery system should be discarded.