ISLAMABAD, May 23: Serious diabetic patients reporting to the Federal Government Services Hospital are not getting “regular insulin” there as the hospital stores only “medium insulin”, several patients told Dawn.
Worse is the plight of government employees who need “regular insulin” but hesitate to purchase the costly injection from the market because the management of the hospital won’t verify the bill for reimbursement from their department.
Dr Sharif Astori, spokesman for the hospital better known as Polyclinic, however denied that the hospital ever used regular insulin.
“You have been provided wrong and untrue information. We have a large stock of 7030 insulin (trade name of ‘medium’ insulin) and never used regular insulin,” the spokesman asserted to Dawn.
Diabetic patients crowding the Out-Patient Department however had a different story to tell. Some even registered their protests with the hospital management.
“Not even a Grade 19 officer like me can afford to pay from his own pocket the Rs11,500 that the regular insulin treatment costs in a month,” one irate patient said.
“All I get from the government every month as medical allowance is Rs6,000. It is cruel, no criminal, to block the reimbursement of the cost of medicine that a civil servant buys to keep himself fit for work,” he said.
Patients’ record shared by a Polyclinic administration official with Dawn showed that of those coming for insulin treatment, some 7,000 needed the “regular” kind. While the “medium” kind, known as ‘7030 insulin’, works in mild cases, the “regular” is needed to control sudden and violent changes in sugar level of diabetic patients.
That happens particularly with people suffering from advanced diabetes, kidney problems and pregnant women with diabetes.
Many of the 150 patients who visit the Nephrology Department of the hospital on an average day need emergency insulin treatment.
“I have taken loan from a friend because I have no money to purchase this (regular insulin) injection,” Azmat Hayat, a bitter federal government employee, blurted out. “Besides, even the local purchase facility in which your amount is reimbursed by the government has been denied.”