NICH short of medication?

An acute shortage of medicines in the NICH has compelled patients to buy medicines from private medical stores.

KARACHI: An acute shortage of medicines in the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) has compelled patients to buy medicines from private medical stores, hospital sources revealed on Friday.

Patients are unable to get all the medicines prescribed by doctors, people at the Out Patient Department said. Sources revealed that this is because the hospital’s budget for purchasing medicines had been used up several months ago.

NICH director said, however, that the shortage of medicines is due to an increasing number of patients visiting the hospital. He said that the hospital’s annual budget for medicines was Rs28 million, out of which Rs15 million had already been spent on oxygen cylinders.

“The shortage of medicines can be overcome if the government helps us establish an oxygen plant at the hospital,” the director said, adding that the facility will cost Rs40 million.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2010.