By: Kamran Khamiso Khowaja
SUJAWAL: Jati, one of the densely populated Taluka of district Sujawal with a population of around 250000 souls, is deprived of basic health facilities as the Taluka Hospital Jati, the major health faculty, is facing a shortage of doctors, paramedical staff, and the lower staff after the abrogation of a public-private partnership between Medical Emergency Resilience Foundation and the Sindh Government.
As per details, the hospitals of district Sujawal were given under the administrative control of MERF under a public-private partnership for 5 years and that partnership came to an end last month.
It was learnt by this correspondent that when the hospital was under the administrative control of MERF there were around 7, doctors including a women medical officer, 4 dispensers, and four midwives but the number of doctors has now reduced to 3 including a medical superintendent.
While talking to this correspondent Medical Superintendent of the Taluka Hospital Dr. Syed Yameen Shah said that the health care services were abominably affected following the shortage of staff, particularly doctors and paramedics adding that when he had sufficient staff night and evening shifts were also up and running but he had to abandon those shifts due to the shortage of staff.
He said that he had to close the X-ray department following power hide and seek in the area and the malaria screening department owing to the unavailability of the staff.
Mohammad Essa Memon, senior clerk at the taluka hospital said that there was a drastic shortage of medicine, and other consumables and they were facing a host of problems to manage the patients.
He added that the number of daily outdoor patients now shrunk to 250 which was once 800 per day when the hospital was administered by the NGO. He said that the sanctioned strength of gazetted posts that included specialist doctors was 41 since 1990 but the number of currently serving doctors was 3.
Meanwhile, it was learnt through credible sources at the district health office Sujawal that a plan for operating hospitals and recruitment of new staff has been sent to the provincial health ministry for approval.
