KARACHI: The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation`s (KMC) medical services department is preparing a PC-I in which it will demand Rs1 billion as a grant from the Sindh government for yearly expenditures for its 13 hospitals, it emerged on Sunday.

Officials in the KMC said the grant of Rs177 million, which the provincial government had given to the medical services department to meet expenditure for two months, had been spent on procurement of the required basic medicines, syringes and restoration of certain facilities which had been suspended for many months.

The shortage of funds with the country`s largest municipality haddearly affected its health delivery system. Particularly, said of ficials, the number of patients to the KMC`s 13 hospitals, including the tertiaryfacilityofAbbasiShaheed Hospital, had radically declined.

Considering the KMC`s continuous calls for help, of ficials said, the government had released Rs177m for two-month expenditures with the promise that a yearly grant would be released later on.

Of ficials said the grant had been spent on the basic requirements, which included procurement of basic drugs, expenses on patients in wards, and repairs of machines which had been out of order for more than two years.

It is learnt that the inoperative CT-scan and MRI machines at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital would be made functional during thismonth. Besides, officials said, the shortage of X-ray films had also been sorted out.

`We have an ample quantity of X-ray films now,` said an of ficial.

Besides, he added, syringes and drips, which too had vanished for a couple of years, were readily available.

Muhammad Ali Abbasi, senior director medical services, KMC, told Dawn that a PC-I for the yearly grant of Rs1bn was being prepared.

`We are preparing it to request a grant for the next 12 months,` he said, adding, that the 13 hospitals his department was taking care of had at least 2,000 beds, with 900 beds only in the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

`Such a grant will greatly help us,` said the of ficial.Of ficials claimed the number of patients, which had declined considerably in the past five years, had increased with the availability of medicines, diagnostic facilities and equipment.

The shortage of doctors, however, still remains a problem in need of a solution.

Earlier, said sources, the number of OPD patients and admissions to major public sector healthcare centres of KMC, including AbbasiShaheedHospital,Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases, Sobhraj Maternity Hospital, Sarfaraz Rafiqui Shaheed Hospital, Leprosy Hospital Manghopir, and Spencer Eye Hospital, had dropped by more than 25 per cent because of a perennial financial crisis as they were unable to provide free healthcareto patient s.

Diagnostic machines remained inoperative and hospitals were unable to repair them due to shortage of funds. The supply of food to the admitted patients had also stopped and development projects could not be completed for the same reasons.

Poor patients, for whom such facilities were a blessing, were forced to go to hospitals run by the Sindh government`s health ministry.

Sources said the KMC`s medical health department owed Rs350m to contractors for the supply of medicines during the `drought` years.

They said the provincial government had approved Rs80m to repay part of the outstanding dues to the contractors but for certainunexplained reasons withdrew it in a space of days.

House officers` salaries Officials in the KMC said they were in the process of releasing six-month salaries of some 250 house officers who were working at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for eight months without getting a single penny.

`This involves no financial problem,` said a senior official.

`Certain procedural problems are there which are being sorted out.

He said the hospital sent a request for the release of six-month salaries for the doctors, which otherwise, should have been sent each month.

`We will pay them salaries in the days to come,` said an official.