Welfare pharmacy seal-off adds to poor patients’ woes

GUJRAT: The District Health Authority (DHA) has shut down the medical store of the Patients’ Welfare Association at Jalalpur Jattan Civil Hospital following the recent visit of Punjab Secretary for Health and Population Nadia Saqib, a move that has drawn concern from patients, civil society representatives and local residents.

The medical store, which had been providing medicines to poor and needy patients on a welfare basis, was closed after Secretary Nadia Saqib’s visit to Gujrat last week. Medical stores at THQ hospitals in Kharian and Kunjah were also closed following the health secretary’s directions, according to official sources.

The Health Department’s position is that medicines should not be distributed without a Drug Testing Laboratory (DTL) report. Officials said the Jalalpur Jattan store was sealed because the medicines available there did not have the required DTL reports. They maintained that the department could not allow medicines to be provided to patients without ensuring their quality through the prescribed testing process.

However, the closure of the patients’ welfare association’s medical store has raised concerns among local residents, particularly because the association had been supplementing the medicines officially provided by the hospital and helping poor patients who could not afford medicines from private pharmacies.

Sources said the official medicine budget of Jalalpur Jattan Civil Hospital was already very low, even when compared with hospitals functioning at the THQ level. Local authorities had therefore engaged civil society and philanthropists to supplement the officially provided medicines and facilitate poor and needy patients.

The development has also triggered protests by civil society representatives, who have demanded immediate attention to the shortage of medicines and other healthcare facilities at the hospital, particularly now that the welfare pharmacy is no longer operational.

Representatives of the Patients’ Welfare Association have also urged Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz to take notice of the situation and ensure the establishment of a proper THQ hospital at Jalalpur Jattan, permission for the resumption of medicine provision through appropriate channels, and an increase in the hospital’s medicine budget.

The association’s representatives have also criticised the frequent changes of medical superintendents at Jalalpur Jattan Civil Hospital and demanded more medical officers and other staff to improve healthcare services.

Jalalpur Jattan was upgraded as a tehsil headquarters by former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi in 2022. Despite being the second major urban centre of Gujrat district, the tehsil has yet to get a THQ-level hospital for its population of around 700,000, according to local sources.

The issue has become particularly sensitive for residents because the Patients’ Welfare Association had emerged as an important support system for poor patients seeking treatment at the civil hospital.

While the Health Department insists that medicines must undergo the required testing process before being distributed, local residents argue that the closure has further reduced an already limited source of medicines for needy patients.
The situation has now put the spotlight on both the quality-control requirements for medicines and the broader shortage of healthcare resources at Jalalpur Jattan Civil Hospital.