LAHORE: The Punjab Specialized Healthcare Medical Education Department’s institutes are burdening the country’s coffers with exorbitant monthly rent payments to private buildings.
According to reports, the rent on private homes is reportedly many times more than market prices. This has many stakeholders concerned and calling on the government to look into the subject through third parties in order to make the public aware of the realities.
Four government institutions have reportedly been renting out private buildings for more than Rs7 million for a long time, according to documents. While the health secretariat on Queens Road has enough room to house these institutes, some authorities claimed that private buildings were being rented in order to conserve public funds. People’s struggles also got worse when they had to go to the “scattered government health offices” in the province capital because many of the problems included several state-run institutions and were similar in character..
Documents show that different Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) offices are paying a monthly rent of Rs3.6 million. The monthly rent for the commission’s three head offices in leased premises in Lahore is approximately Rs. 3 million, while offices in other cities receive payments of Rs. 600,000. The rent for three of the PHC offices in Garden Town is Rs2.3 million, Rs387,750, and Rs280,000.
The monthly rent for the offices in the Multan Region, Bahawalpur Regional Office, and Sargodha Region is Rs. 205,000, Rs. 106,945, and Rs. 130,000, respectively.
According to sources, the health department has enough official structures in these cities so that these institutes can relocate without wasting taxpayer dollars.
In a similar vein, the Punjab Health Initiative Management Company pays Rs1.3 million in rent for its location in a rented building in Lahore’s Gulberg. This corporation has already paid more than Rs 80 million in rent.
While the Punjab Pharmacy Council’s office rented a private house in Garden Town, Lahore, for Rs800,000 a month, the Punjab Human Organ Transplant Authority pays a private building owner in Shadman Rs1.3 million in rent each month.
The performance of these institutions has been questioned, but officials claim that the enormous costs associated with the enormous compensation packages that these government office administrators receive are on top of the millions of rupees that go into the pockets of owners of private buildings on a monthly basis.
Poor and worthy patients have become rolling stones in Lahore’s public sector main hospitals, where they are not receiving free testing or medication while the government is spending millions on rent. The state of affairs was so bad that five large government hospitals were deemed defaulters of Rs. 9 billion because of a lack of funding. As a result, the majority of diagnostic facilities are closed, the supply of medications has been stopped, and surgeries have been postponed.
