By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI - The city’s major public sector hospital - Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) - has been facing acute shortage of drugs for the last two weeks in the wake of provincial health department’s failure to replenish its medicine supplies.
Admitting that there is an acute shortage of medicine at the JPMC, a senior official of the health facility said that although drugs are not available for out-door and indoor patients, its emergency department was not facing any such situation.
He said that due to non-availability of medicines, patients visiting the hospital’s OPD and those admitted there have no choice but to purchase medicine from private medical stores.
Source said that though the hospital ran out of its stock of medicines about two weeks back, the inordinate delay in arranging its medicine supplies by the concerned health authorities has created immense hardships for the poor patients visiting its OPDs and those admitted there.
“One could see that poor patients, who in the hope of getting medicines prescribed by doctors at the JPMC’s OPDs, stand in long queues in front of its pharmacy, but majority of them return disappointed,” the sources deplored.
However, JPMC’s deputy director (Admin) Dr Jawaid Jamali said that supply of medicine has been restored at the hospital and the overall situation will improve in a couple of days.