LARKANA:Over one hundreds Hepatitis C and over 85 registered patients of Hepatitis D are suffering due to negligence of Hepatitis Control Program of Sindh as it has failed to supply required medicines to the Centre established in Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH), Larkana, since over three months, PPI learnt here on Tuesday.
The adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister for Jails, Aijaz Jakhrani, recently told newsmen after his visit to Central Prison, Larkana that over 200 prisoners were suffering either from Hepatitis B or C and two had also been detected as HIV positive out of 1019 inmates. Over 1000 patients have already been tested HIV positive and 90% of them are children in Ratodero during past four months who are still running from pillar to post between Larkana and Ratodero to get proper treatment and diagnostic facilities under one roof.
Sindh AIDS Control Program (SACP) and Hepatitis Treatment and Control Program have miserably failed to control the spread of both deadly diseases prevailing in Sindh on massive level since years despite allocation of taxpayer’s billions of rupees which needed to be thoroughly and minutely probed.
In this connection, Dr. Abdul Khalique Shaikh, Incharge, Hepatitis Program, Larkana told this scribe on Tuesday that over 100 Hepatitis C and over 85 patients of Hepatitis D are on the waiting list to get treatment medicines at this Centre alone since past three months, adding all these patients had been registered. He said jail inmates were getting drugs directly from the Hepatitis Control Program, Hyderabad and they had no concern with them. He said no new patients had been registered since last three months due to unavailability of medication.
Dr. Raj Kumar, Incharge Pathologist, CMCH Central Laboratory, said that they don’t have approved kits for Hepatitis B and C since past three months which are supplied by the hospital. He said anyone wanting to test himself for the viral disease shall have to procure kits from his own pocket and they would do the rest. “This journalist also got himself tested for Hepatitis B and C along with LFT, to know the truth, and I purchased two kits for B and C which fortunately turned out to be negative.”
“I was surprised when I was given official report on a plain quarter of a paper” and asked Dr. Kumar who said that there are neither report pads nor OPD slips in CMCH since last year and all reports and slips are given on plain papers in every department adding surely nobody rely on these reports written on plain papers despite the fact these are accurate.
In this connection, when Hepatitis Provincial Program Manager (PPM) Dr. Zulfiqar Dharejo was contacted to know the prevailing position of drugs, he failed to attend any call.
Retired Senior Medical Officer Dr. Rahim Bux Baloch said that both these programs (Hepatitis and HIV/AIDS) should be closed down as both had miserably failed to control HIV and Hepatitis in Sindh which was their primary job while funds allocated to them should be thoroughly investigated.
He said that all PPMs of both programs should also be made accountable and taken to task. He said that if Hepatitis was not controlled immediately, then it would turn from epidemic to endemic because they had completely failed to control it. He said hundreds of other new cases must have surfaced during past three months who must be waiting for registration to get treatment which was very costly and beyond the reach of an ordinary person.
He said tragic and hazardous situation was prevailing in the entire healthcare system in Sindh where medicines were not being supplied to the indoor and outdoor poor patients. He said denying treatment to the poverty-stricken masses means forcibly pushing them to stone-age era when people used to go to the shrines, Mazars and get prayers from fake fakeers and pirs for their ailment, in this scientific technology world, which indeed is barbaric act.