Shortage of life-saving drugs at Nishtar Hospital: Doctors stage demo, take out rally in Multan

MULTAN: The members of the Pakistan Medical Association and the Postgraduate Registrars serving at the Nishtar Hospital on Monday staged a demonstration and took out a rally against shortage of life saving drugs at the hospital.

The protesters led by PMA president Prof Dr Masoodur Rauf Haraj protested in front of the MS Office and later took out a rally which ended at the gate of the hospital. A large numbers of citizens also joined the rally and chanted slogans against the Health authorities for not taking steps to provide live saving drugs at the Nishtar Hospital wards. The protesters warned that they would launch a protest campaign against shortage of drugs at the hospital. The protestors warned if the problem of shortage of medicines was not solved in the next seven days, the doctors community would take out protest rallies for indefinite period. The protesting doctors said that the hospital administration was continuously writing the Punjab Health Department for urgent supply of medicines for poor patients but the government was reluctant to release funds under the pretext of unavailability of budgets. They said that more than five cancer patients had died at the hospital during the last six months due to unavailability of free cancer medicines. The Punjab government had miserably failed in resolving the issue of shortage of essential medicines at the hospital. Speaking on the occasion, PMA president Prof Dr Masoodur Rauf Haraj said that all the wards of the Nishtar Hospital were facing serious shortage of life saving drugs and the administration had been informed repeatedly but no proper heed could be paid to the most critical problem, which was rising day by day.