OBJECTIVE : To determine the baseline running cost of maintaining a patient in a general medical ward for one day. METHOD: Forty three patients (males 19, females 24) were retrospectively randomly selected from medical admission lists of the following specialities; cardiology, neurology, rheumatology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, infectious diseases and haematology from January through July 1997. Data on patients’ demographics, medications, clinical & laboratory investigations and procedures were collected from patients’ files. Fixed and variable costs were identified and costed. Fixed costs included nursing, biomedical engineering, laundry, catering, cleaning, maintenance and administration overheads but excluded the costs of hospital building per se. Amongst the variable costs were professional fees including physicians’, clinical pharmacists’, physiotherapists’ and dieticians’. The average daily running cost was calculated and comparative analysis was made for differences between sex and age groups. RESULTS : The average daily running cost (all in US dollars) of maintaining a patient in a general medical ward was $202. There was no statistical difference (p(0.05) for either sex ($196:$203, male : female) or age groups ($193:$204, (30 : >30). CONCLUSION: This study determined the daily baseline running cost of maintaining a patient in a general medical ward. Both fixed and variable costs were comparable for sex and age groups but the fixed costs were almost double the variable costs. This was a helpful pilot study and provided a base for further future bigger studies in determining the average daily running cost of maintaining a patient in a general medical ward.