Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Medicine budget allocation in health facilities usually focus on past funding levels and
the efficiency of health services delivery. Despite the level of allocation to hospitals, there is a growing
gap between available and required medicine budget because the health needs have not diminished.
This gap has led us for medicine consumption costing of tehsil headquarters hospitals of Punjab.
OBJECTIVE: To assess average medicine cost including laboratory investigations for indoor and
outdoor patient treated at tehsil headquarter hospital of Punjab, working under Punjab Primary and
Secondary Healthcare Department.
SETTING: The cost of medicines consumption is estimated both for inpatient as well as outpatients of
tehsil headquarter hospitals of Punjab.
METHODOLOGY: Ten tehsil headquarter (THQ) hospitals were selected out of 129 THQ hospitals of
Punjab through simple random sampling technique; 2 indoor and 2 outdoor patients were again chosen
through simple random sampling technique from each ward of selected THQs and free medicine were
dispensed to these selected patients.Cross sectional study design is used and cost of medicine
consumption is observed from the patients of randomly selected sample hospitals at single point time
or time interval.
RESULTS: This study provides an estimated medicine cost for treating all indoor and outdoor patients at
all THQ hospitals under Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department of Punjab. The average cost per
outpatient visit is estimated as Rs. 172.46 and the average cost per admission for inpatient care is
Rs. 2992.50.Total medicines consumption estimated cost for 129 tehsil headquarter hospitals is Rs 7.18
billion.
CONCLUSION: The current study identified gap between allocated medicines budget and actual
medicines needed by the patients. In future this study may provide guidelines to policy maker while
calculating actual justified budget allocation for medicines, diagnostic and other supplies to fulfill the
patient’s requirement effectively and efficiently.
Naqvi Hamad, Muhammad Khan Ranjha, Zahida Sarwar. (2017) Cost Estimates for Medicines and Laboratory Investigations for Tehsil Headquarter Hospitals of Punjab, Journal of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Volume-16, Issue-3.
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