Ghost hospital: Inquiry report blames typo in budget books

Finance department had mistakenly put the allocation for the taluka hospital, Gambat, under another name

KARACHI: The inquiry committee investigating the 'ghost' hospital by the name of Taluka Hospital, Khairpur, has found that the scheme is wrongly reflected in the budget books and that there exists no health facility by the given name.

"This was a typographical error as the scheme was actually named 'Taluka Hospital Gambat' but was mistakenly printed with another name," said an inquiry report submitted to the chief minister in the wake of a news story, titled 'Ghost school running in chief minister's backyard,' that was published in The Express Tribune on Monday, June 8.

The inquiry, which was initiated on the orders of the chief minister and was headed by the Sukkur commissioner, said that the allocated funds were released and utilised by the health facility in Gambat.

It also blamed the district health office of showing a lethargic attitude in making the correction. "A letter of correction was sent to the finance department to fix the error in the budget books, but this was not done," said the Sukkur commissioner, Abbas Baloch, in the report.

According to Baloch, over 30 officials of the health department and the district administration were summoned by the inquiry committee and their statements were recorded to investigate the issue.

During the inquiry, Dr Rahim Bux Bhatti, a renowned philanthropist and director of Gambat Institute of Medical Science, a state-of-the-art hospital in the area, was also invited.  Dr Bhatti, while referring to the Sindh Assembly's act, 'Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences Act, 2006,' said that the provincial government had to hand over the rural and basic health units in Gambat taluka as well as the reproductive health services centre  to the institute, but that had yet to be done.

"Para 4 of this Act has never been followed. The funds of these basic and rural health centres were to be transferred to the administration of Gambat Institute of Medical Science for operations and management, but it was all in vain. Instead of implementing the law, the district health office utilised the funds for salaries and other purposes," he said.

The inquiry committee, in its report, recommended handing over the operations and management of the health facilities falling in Gambat taluka to the said institute along with the allocation of the funds.

The report stated that the District Health Office, Khairpur, had utilised all the funds for these health facilities itself in violation of the act, which is why the newspaper had reflected the scheme as a 'ghost hospital'.

The Sukkur commissioner has also recommended directing the finance department to make the necessary correction in the budget books to avoid such ambiguity in the future.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2015.