BAHAWALNAGAR: The district and sessions judge says the equipment and safety gear worth millions acquired for health officials by the Bahawalnagar District Health Authority should be replaced because of poor quality.

He has directed the deputy commissioner, the health CEO and the DHQ hospital MS to immediately acquire quality equipment and provide healthcare officials with all the necessary facilities.

District Bar Association member Qamar Muneer submitted a writ petition in the sessions court questioning the transparency in the acquisition of medical equipment for the DHQ and THQ hospitals in the district and their quality. He made the DC, the health CEO and the DHQ hospital MS party to the petition.

District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Saleem during the hearing called doctors and MS and formed a five-member committee comprising doctors and lawyers to check the equipment acquired by the district administration. The committee told the court in a report that the equipment was substandard.

The judge directed the district administration to acquire quality equipment and also bound it to ensure the availability of masks, gloves and necessary medicines at all medical stores.

Sources in the District Health Authority (DHA) told Dawn that a month had gone by after the emergency situation emerged because of coronavirus and millions of rupees had been allocated. The district administration had not only ignored the general public but the medical staff also had not been provided with basic facilities, they said.

Sources said the paramedical staff of emergency wards was still forced to work without masks, gloves, gowns and other basic safety gear. Similarly, they said, the isolation ward established at the DHQ hospital for suspected coronavirus patients was locked and even ventilators had not been made functional yet.

The doctors and paramedical staff had recorded their protest and the district administration had turned a deaf ear, they added.

Sources further claimed that the MS placed an order of masks, gloves, gowns and sodium hypochlorite to a vendor worth millions out of which 900 goggles, 5,000 masks, 200 gowns, 5,000 gloves and 300 bottles of sodium hypochlorite reached the logistics office. However, the health assurance committee’s member and logistics officer Arsalan and senior doctors including Dr Amir and Dr Atif Naeem refused to receive the supply citing the substandard quality of the products over which the MS showed his anger.

The hospital staff then complained to the health CEO who advised them to visit the MS Office. Later, representatives of doctors and paramedics met the MS for the second time but he again refused to return the equipment and also threatened to terminate the people in the meeting besides using abusive language. A CCTV footage was saved in the hospital.

Sources said that around 900 hand sanitisers available at the DHO store for several months had been distributed among bureaucrats, political personalities and other influential people in the first few days after the outbreak. They said 400 hand sanitisers were still available in the DHO office store.

Some doctors and paramedics said they had not even received ordinary surgical masks and other paraphernalia.

Logistics Officer Arsalan said the substandard equipment except gloves had been rejected.

Grand Health Alliance Commission chairman Dr Atique Mushtaq (one of the committee members) said that except surgical gloves, all the equipment acquired by the MS office was of poor quality and this was also highlighted in the report presented to the court.

DHQ MS Dr Inamul Haq Jamali told Dawn that surgical gloves and gowns were found to be of good quality and the inquiry committee, after checking, gave a go-ahead to use these. He said the items that were of poor quality had been returned to the vendor.

About the N95 masks in the store, he said he had distributed those among the paramedical staff.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2020