KARACHI: Civil Hospital Karachi, one of the largest healthcare facilities of the province, is facing a shortage of lifesaving cancer drugs for the last few weeks due to dearth of budget, Daily Times learnt on Saturday.

In addition, the quantity of tablets earlier provided for monthly dosages to the patients under the Zakat fund has also being reduced. This has added to the miseries of the patients and their attendants coming from various parts of the province, as they have to visit the healthcare facility more frequently, spending additional time and money.

However, the CHK Procurement Department has shown complete ignorance about the shortage of medicines.

These drugs include Letrozole and Jakavi tablets. Jakavi is used to treat people with an enlarged spleen and other symptoms of myelofibrosis, a rare type of blood cancer.

Letrozole tablet is used to treat certain types of breast cancer (such as hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer) in women after menopause. Letrozole is also used to help prevent the cancer from returning.

Some of the medicines are very costly. For example, the price of Jakavi in the local market is around Rs 7,000 per tablet whereas the Letrozole is available in market at Rs 200 per tablet.

At present, around 1,300 patients are under treatment for breast cancer at CHK whereas around 130 patients of blood cancer keep visiting the hospital to get their prescribed medicines.

NisarMemon, a retired official from Larkana’sJaral Shah neighbourhood and a visitor for cancer treatment at the (oncology) department, told Daily Times that his 62-year-old wife WaqarunNisa was suffering from cancer for the last three years. “In the past, I used to get medicines for my wife, but today the hospital administration told me that medicine is not available because of a shortage of funds.”

“Even medicines on Zakat funds are not available, which adds to the miseries of a person like myself, who has to travel hundreds of kilometres to get medicines,” Memon said.

However, CHK’s medicine purchasing department claimed that there was no shortage of medicines, and the medical supplies were according to ‘routine’.

“I am not aware about the unavailability of any medicine. Some of the medicines may be short, but their purchasing orders would have been placed,” said Ismail from the Procurement Department, Civil Hospital Karachi. He even showed complete ignorance about CHK’s total budget for purchasing medicines.