By Asma Kundi
ISLAMABAD: Suhail, a resident of Islamabad, has visited multiple medical stores in the past couple of days in search of an injection used in the C.T. Scan, but his inability to acquire it amid a shortage in the supply of medical tools has left his wife in severe constant pain.
The hospital had asked Suhail to buy the Omnipaque Injection after physicians prescribed his wife a C.T. Scan for severe shoulder pain.
“I don’t know where to go; the poor in this country don’t have the right to live because no one listens or cares for us. I have arranged money for C.T. Scan, which costs around 12 to 15 thousand, but now, due to the unavailability of this Injection, my wife is suffering unbearable pain daily”, he told World Echo News.
Multiple medicines are short from the market
Usama Aziz, a pharmacist in Blue Area, Islamabad, told World Echo News that a long list of medicines is short from the market, and the people who need them are leaving in disappointment.
“Omnipaque Injection has been missing from the shops for the last three months, and a C.T. Scan could not be performed without this Injection. We have received it today but in minimal quantity,” he said.
He added that drugs used for B.P, sugar, thyroid, and mental patients, including Tegrall, Thiroxin, Prothiaden, and Divon 80, are also short.
It is pertinent to mention here that a few weeks back, the pharmaceutical industry warned of a shortage in the supply of medicines and asked the government to increase the medicine prices as they were unable to sustain their manufacturing.
In this regard, Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) wrote a letter to the federal government and Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to increase medicine prices as the local pharmaceutical industry heavily depends on imported raw materials to manufacture medicines in the country.
