Court orders health dept to reform services in the province immediately.
A bench, comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Mohammad Iqbal Maher, at the Hyderabad Circuit bench ordered on Thursday the Sindh health department to undertake the gamut of health service reforms expeditiously.
The order encompassed shutting down private pharmacies operating inside the premises of government hospitals, establishing government blood banks, removing encroachments and increasing capacity and medicine supplies at hospitals.
“The ambulance service does not exist on a wide scale to rescue [people] in emergencies as well as [transport] patients,” the order observed. “Sindh [government] shall ensure that such service is provided in all [the] districts and such rescue centres shall be established in every district with rescue and toll-free numbers.”
The court further directed the health department to initiate this service within three months beginning from Hyderabad district. Although the order does not specify how many ambulances should be stationed in a particular district on population or geographical bases, it underlines the service must be equipped with necessary medical equipment and paramedics.
A success story
Punjab launched the Rescue 1122 service in 2004 from Lahore, subsequently covering all 36 districts in the province. The service responds to road accidents, fires, building collapses, crime, drowning and explosions as well as the transport of the patients. In Sindh, the provincial government seems to have left this important public concern to non-profit welfare organisations like the Edhi Foundation and Chhipa Welfare Association. However, the ambulances operated by these charities mostly provide transportation services and lack medical equipment and paramedics for emergency response.
Blood centres
The two judges also took an undertaking from the health secretary, Dr Usman Chachar, who stated that four regional blood centres at the division level will be opened within two months. The bench was informed upon inquiry that two posts of special secretaries in the health department were lying vacant. The judges ordered that one more post of a special secretary should be created and appointments should be made against all three positions.
“The chief secretary shall ensure that additional or special secretaries on every sector of health, particularly with regard to thalasaaemia, malaria and hepatitis programmes, shall be [appointed],” stated the order.
Liaquat University Hospital
During the hearing, Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) medical superintendent Dr Wajid Memon apprised the bench that there is one bed for three patients at the LUH facilities in Hyderabad and Jamshoro. Giving one year to the government, the court ordered increasing the current number of 1,400 beds to 2,000 beds in each LUH branch in the two districts.
These tertiary-level teaching hospitals of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro, provide health services to almost the entire Sindh province outside Karachi.
“Needless to mention that special measures shall be taken and such approval shall be sought from the competent authority and, on the pretext of ADP [Sindh government’s budgetary Annual Development Plan], the scheme shall not be delayed in any manner,” the order read.
Furthermore, the SHC gave four months to the chief secretary to approve an existing schedule of new expenditure for the expansion of wards in LUH. The medical superintendent informed the court that the two hospitals are facing a shortage of doctors and paramedics as many gazetted and non-gazetted posts remain vacant. Dr Memon cited the provincial government’s delay in approving the schedule for new wards and units as the reason for the shortage.
The court also ordered the eviction of four private pharmacies operating for many years in the premises of LUH, Hyderabad, within a month, giving 15 days to the government to cancel any permits or agreement with them.
“Since medical stores cannot be permitted in government hospitals, thus any agreement or any lease is void under the eyes of the law,” the order states. On November 13, 2015, LUH notified these pharmacies to close their businesses in 15 days but they had obtained a stay order from the court.
The bench also directed the Sindh health director-general to retrieve possession of the LUH property from a traveller’s lodge and an office of NADRA within one month. The petition, filed by Aamir Lutf Ali, was disposed of.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 12th, 2016.
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