Less than a fortnight after mid-day’s reports about state-run hospitals and colleges including JJ Hospital in Mumbai, running out of medicines, the BMC-run KEM Hospital is facing an acute shortage of basic medicines and non-surgical items. mid-day on Friday found that patients and their kin were told to buy glucose, blood collector tubes, etc. from medical shops.

Asked why doctors were asking patient’s kin to purchase medicines and non-surgical items from outside, they said that’s because the hospital does not have stock. The poor or lower-middle class patients who come with the hope of getting treated for free or at very nominal charges in BMC and government-run hospitals such as KEM, have to bear almost all the expenses.