LAHORE: The pending liabilities against various services have reached Rs10 billion, severely affecting the working of major government teaching hospitals of Lahore as they have no funds to make bulk procurement of life-saving and essential medicines.

Similarly, they have no funds for repair and maintenance of the medical/surgical equipments, lifts, air conditioners, janitorial and security services.

The situation is alarming at the largest Mayo Hospital with highest total liabilities of Rs3 billion followed by Lahore General Hospital with Rs750 million, Children’s Hospital (Rs650m), Jinnah Hospital (Rs445m), the Services Hospital (Rs440m), and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (Rs300m).

Same is the case with other small hospitals including Government Said Mitha Hospital, Shahdra Teaching Hospital, Government Yakki Gate and Kot Khawaja Saeed Hospital.

Health facilities unable to procure medicines, repair equipment

Resultantly, thousands of poor patients have been crying for free treatment for the last many months as they are forced to pay even for commonly used antibiotics.

When contacted, heads of the aforementioned hospitals have confirmed the figures of liabilities.

There are reports that many of these government teaching hospitals are on the verge of closure due to paucity of funds as the companies and other vendors have refused to make further supplies for not clearing the dues of billions of rupees.

Ignoring the hardships of the patients, the health authorities seem to be misrepresenting the ground reality to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, taking advantage of her first experience to head the province, and presenting fabricated reports.

Some medical experts warn of challenges with the approaching summer as many air conditioners are inoperative. Similarly, several medical and surgical equipment and lifts are dysfunctional.

Many patients in multi-storey blocks are forced to use stairs to reach the wards and other relevant sections/offices.

In the absence of the bulk purchase, sources say, major teaching hospitals are making procurement through Local Purchase (LP) and Petty Purchase systems on exorbitant rates.

They say some vendors have made monopoly in connivance with the elements in the hospitals including admin officials, supervisors and storekeepers to earn huge benefits through LP system.

A health department’s senior official blames the previous government for the crisis in the public sector teaching hospitals. He claims the erstwhile government slashed Punjab’s health budget of billions of rupees and diverted the amount to the Universal Health Insurance to run the Sehat Sahulat Programme.

He is critical of the caretaker government and the Punjab health secretary, saying they too used a major chunk of the budget for the revamp programme by spending huge funds on the repair and upgrade of the Lahore’s major teaching hospitals, ignoring the facts that the most urgent needs of the patients are the supply of medicines and other services.

On many occasions, the heads of the teaching institutes had apprised the caretaker government that they required emergency funds to initiate procurement of medicines to run the ‘paralysed’ hospitals but to no avail.

Giving a reference, the official says, Mayo Hospital’s Chief Executive Prof Ahsan Nauman interrupted the then caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi during his visit to the emergency block and raised the issue of liabilities. And Mr Naqvi issued a statement that the government would address the chronic issue soon.

A senior doctor says Omniscan (gadodiamide) injection is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent that helps doctors see images of the brain, spine, chest, stomach, hip area, and other parts of the body.

He says it is recommended as a mandatory drug to every patient who is to undergo MRI test with contrast but unfortunately no bulk procurement was done for the last one year or so at the hospitals, rendering the patients to purchase it at Rs8,000 privately.

Similarly, another life-saving drug Isoflurane has been short in the hospitals for the last two years or so. The drug is used for general anaesthesia before and during surgery.

He says a vendor supplying the anaesthesia drug has stopped providing it when his pending dues reportedly reached Rs1.2bn.Punjab Special Health Secretary Wajid Shah has confirmed to Dawn that the liabilities of billions of rupees have hit the Lahore’s hospitals hard, saying the department has sought reports from the respective hospitals to resolve the matter on a priority basis.

He says he will be able to further comment on the matter after the reports.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2024