LAHORE: Once a state-of-the-art health facility, particularly offering free-of-cost standard eye treatment provided to over 80pc poor patients, the Government Data Darbar General & Eye Hospital has become a rolling stone between the government departments, leaving the patients to suffer due to the bureaucratic bottleneck.

The 120-bed hospital was originally under the administrative control of the Auqaf Department which was managing the Rs260m annual budget to run its operational matters.

An official said the situation got worse when administrative control of the hospital was first handed over to the primary andsecondary health department and then to the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) by Mohsin Naqvi when he was the caretaker chief minister.

During the transmission period, the hospital`s budget allocated for provision of medicine and maintenance of medical/ surgical equipment was withheld, causing serious issues as the hospital was already heading towards closure because the Auqaf department was allowed to manage the budget for its human resource only.

`Consequent upon the decision of the provincial cabinet, taken in its 35th meetingheld on Jan10,2024 and subsequent to the signing of the Concession Agreement on Jan 24, 2024 with the ANF duly vetted by the law and the parliamentary affairs department, the management of Data Darbar Hospital is hereby handed over to the ANF for the establishment of Model Addiction Treatment, Rehabilitation and Reintegration Centre with immediate effect,` reads an official letter.

It has further announced that the existing human resource shall be retained on thepayroll of the Punjab Auqaf Organization/ Auqaf and Religious Affairs Department.

The official said the government, however, suspended the transfer of the hospital to the ANF on the directions of the Lahore High Court (LHC) when the decision was challenged in the court. Later, he added, the hospital was again transferred to the primary and secondary healthcare department with instructions to the Auqaf department to keep managing the financial matters pertaining to the extent of the human resource and utility services.

The situation turned worse as many units of the hospital were shut down and patients were forced to go either to the private sector or other hospitals of the city.

Meanwhile, the hospital faced severe shortage of funds for procurement of medicines, maintenance of equipment, leaving many wards to shut its various healthcare services.

Talking about the causes that led to the situation, the official said it all began with a surprise visit by the then caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi in the dead of the night during the weekend on Nov 25, 2023.Since the hospital offered only outpatient service, there was no emergency staff in the middle of the night because the hospital did not have any emergency facility. Using the absence of emergency staff as an excuse, Mr Naqvi issued an order for transfer of the hospital itself to the provincial health department.

This order ignored three facts, the official said. `Firstly, instead of solving an administrative issue (absence of staff) organizationally, transferring the entire hospital to another department gave way to conspiracy theories. Secondly, Section 230 of Election Act 2017 prohibits caretakers to take such decisions of permanent nature and thirdly, it was a `Wagf (endowment) property`, which legally can neither be transferrednorusedforany otherpurpose, except for the purpose it was originally meant for.

The order also presumed that government hospitals were more efficient than privately-run trust facilities. Consequently, the hospital was handed over to the health department last year.

Since then, the Auqaf Department didone, and the only, deed in the last one year.

It has multiplied the rates of different services offered by the hospital, squeezed supply of medicines to almost zero and left machines unrepaired. The number of the patients has already dropped to half as services became costly and medicines are missing.

Commenting on the situation, a former secretary thinks that better sense should have prevailed.

`If a few doctors were missing, they should have been warned of administrative consequences. Playing with the fate of the entire institution is beyond comprehension.

What happened next (shifting to ANF control) only led to conspiracy theories doing rounds.

A senior official of the health department claimed that the Punjab Health Facilities Management Company (PHFMC) will run the Government Data Darbar General & Eye Hospital in future.

He said a team of the PHFMC visited the hospital recently to prepare estimated budgetary requirements in order to make it fully functional soon.