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Free drugs not available to poor patients, hospitals reject claim
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Monday, March 02, 2009 (GST)
Poor patients visiting the city’s allied hospitals complain that they are not getting free medicines despite the commitment of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif...
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that the facility to provide the poor and the unprivileged with free medicines will continue. Around 400 to 600 patients daily visit the emergency departments, while 1,600 to 2,000 visit the outdoor-patient-department (OPD) of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Hospital (BBSH), Holy Family Hospital (HFH) and District Headquarters Hospital. During visits to these hospitals, a number of poor patients told Daily Times that after routine checkup doctors give them dirt cheap tablets and ask them to buy the rest of medicines from the market. They said they were too poor to buy expensive medicines and wanted that they got all the required medicines free of cost. Mohammad Amjad, who had brought his mother to BBSH, said that a doctor in the emergency department checked his mother and gave her some tablets and suggested that the rest of the medicines should be bought from the open market. Looking depressed and dejected, he said influential people were not only accommodated out of turn, but also given free medicines though their pocket could afford to buy medicines from the open market. Shamshad Ahmed, who came to HFH with a relative, said that all government hospitals in the city not only gave full protocol to political leaders and influential people, but also provided them with free medicines. Without naming a local political leader, he said two days ago he came to a hospital and was given Rs 5,000 worth of free medicines. Dr Chashme Huma, Deputy Medical Superintendent (DMS) of BBSH, told Daily Times that it was wrong that poor patients were not provided free medicines in the emergency department. She said almost 200 medicines of different nomenclature were provided free of cost to patients on the provincial government’s directive. She said mostly injectable medicines were given to patients in the emergency department. “It has been witnessed that three to five attendants accompany a patient and when they see them getting free medicines they also pose themselves as patients to get free medicines. In that case, we give them few tablets,” Huma said. The management of District Headquarters Hospital claimed that free medicines were given to all outdoor and indoor patients.
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