BADIN  -  At least more than 60 thousand poor patients of districts Ba­din, Mithi, Thatta and Sujawal on a monthly basis suffered as District Headquarter Hospital which was renamed as ‘Dr Si­kander Ali Mandhro Hospital’ Badin earlier called as Indus Hospital faced a severe shortage of funds for the last two years and ran on brief finance only.

According to sources, beset by serious financial troubles for the past two years, District Head­quarter Hospital, Dr Sikander Ali Mandhro — the largest public sector hospital in the coastal re­gion of Sindh — is largely being run on delaying Government as­sistance that has caused patients a lot of problems, it emerged dur­ing a media briefing on Saturday. The hospital run by the Indus Network (IN) has a daily visitor count of over 2,000 patients.

The credible sources said that the 20-wards and 344-bed district headquarters hospital in Badin did not receive the ap­proved budget timely with the result that all units of the hos­pital, including mobile units and two container hospitals Matli and Khorwah were shutter down when the District Headquarter Hospital faced an acute short­age of life-saving medicines and other essential items.

Funding constraints, it has come into knowledge, had se­riously affected every service of the health facility including emergency wards of male and women adults, Gynae and chil­dren, which once provided not only costly medicines free but also food to its indoor patients.

The Management of District Headquarter Hospital, Dr. Sikan­der Ali Mandhro Hospital has also liability of Rs. 3000 million to the Government of Sindh for the smooth running of the hos­pital matters over the last two years despite of Sindh Govern­ment has also approved Rs. 9000 million but due lack of interest of concerned authorities it couldn’t release timely to administration of DHQ hospital Badin which may become the cause of clo­sures of all medical departments of hospital except of emergency services, source told.

In order to deal with the finan­cial crisis, the District Headquarter (DHQ) Hospital Badin’s adminis­tration has also submitted reports to the Sindh government and pro­vincial health Department heads to release the due budget timely to pay the arrears of the hospital timely. It is pertinent to mention that if no budget is released on an immediate basis, more than 1500 employees and their families will also suffer ruthlessly when 90 employees of mobile units and container hospitals have already been informed of their termina­tion from Nov 20, 2023.