GUJRAT: The District Health Authority (DHA) has shut down the pharmacies of patients’ welfare association at the Jalalpur Jattan Civil Hospital and THQ Hospitals in Kharian and Kunjah on the orders of the Punjab Health secretary affecting the poor and needy patients.
A senior DHA official said that during her visit to the Jalalpur Jattan Civil Hospital last week, Health and Population SecretaryNadia Saqib directed the local health authorities to close the patients’ welfare association’s medical store and ordered that these medicines should not be allowed without testing by the drug testing laboratory (DTL).
The official also claimed that since the official budget for medicines at the Jalalpur Civil Hospital was very low, even compared to that of the THQ-level hospitals, local authorities had engaged civil society and philanthropists to supplement the officially-provided medicines to facilitate the poor andneedy patients.
However, following her visit to Gujrat on Wednesday the last, the medical store was immediately sealed, whereas patients welfare associations’ medical stores in Kharian and Kunjah THQs were also closed down.
Official sources claimed that the Health secretary had expressed annoyance at the provision of medicines without a DTL report.
They said that the DTL report usually tool< 40-50 days and until then these medical stores would remain closed.