LAHORE: Despite a clear warning by the Punjab health department to the public hospitals in the province to avoid over and above procurement, the pending liabilities of the Government Benazir Bhutto Hospital Rawalpindi have increased to Rs50 million, allegedly owing to the negligence on the part of the facility’s administration.

Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Secretary Ahmad Javed Qazi had in a recent video-link meeting warned all the heads of the teaching institutions of the province of strict action for any procurement over and above the given budget.

Despite the warning, one of Rawalpindi’s main tertiary care hospitals reportedly purchased medicines more than the budgetary allocations.

An official said the medicines were procured despite the hospital’s acting Medical Superintendent Dr Nawaz Khokhar being informed by relevant officials and doctors that his decision could cause problems as the facility’s pending liabilities under the head (of medicines) had gone over Rs50m.

The hospital is being run without making appointment of a regular MS despite the fact that Rawalpindi is the second major district after Lahore with the highest dengue and Covid cases.

He said the health department had given additional charge of MS to Dr Khokhar who was originally a radiologist and had no administrative experience or public health qualification.

When contacted, Dr Khokhar said the pending liabilities increased after the hospital faced shortage of funds, that he said, were not provided by the government to meet the day to day expenses. He said the hospital was in a dire need of funds to purchase medicines as the number of dengue and Covid patients had increased manifold.

“The Government Benazir Bhutto Hospital Rawalpindi was sharing an enormous burden of the [Covid and dengue] patients, necessitating over and above procurement due to shortage of funds,” Dr Khokhar said, adding that all the medicines purchased by the hospital were used for the treatment of patients.

He, however, made it clear that the hospital would try to resolve the issue of pending liabilities of Rs50m “with its own resources”.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2021