Health care: NICH running low on medicines

KARACHI: The National Institute of Child Health (NICH), the biggest public-sector children’s hospital, faces a severe shortage of medicines. According to some parents whose children are admitted at the NICH, the doctors ask them to buy medicines, drips and syringes from pharmacies and medical stores. The hospital staff claims that the medicine stock has finished. The director of NICH, Professor Jamal, confirmed that the hospital was facing a shortage but added that they will get them in the next few days. Almost 50 per cent of the budget is spent on buying oxygen cylinders, while the remaining amount is spent on other medical facilities, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2012.