PESHAWAR, June 2: Critically-ill people seeking treatment at teaching hospitals suffer for want of beds as most of the beds are allotted to patients who visit private clinics of consultants, it is learnt.
“Consultants admit only those patients from the OPD who first visit their clinics,” said a doctor.
“Patients rushed to hospitals in emergency do not find beds. They end up lying on benches,” the doctor said.
The health department had issued a notification on October 17, 2004, directing consultants to shift critically-ill patients to hospitals without charging fee.
The directive continues to be ignored.
“Consultants do not admit even seriously-ill patients from out-patient departments. Patients are forced to visit their private clinics to get themselves admitted to a hospital ward,” says another doctor at a hospital.
He said that on an average there were 30 wards in each of the three teaching hospitals in Peshawar with 40 beds in each ward and added that all beds were occupied by patients bearing chits from consultants’ clinics.
Most of the critically-ill patients, admitted to hospitals through emergency wards, were allowed to lie on wooden benches.
“There are three to four consultants in each ward and they all admit patients from their private clinics,” says a dispenser at a surgical OPD.
A medical officer said that patients admitted from the OPDs “are not owned by consultants.”
Operations to be performed on patients unable to visit consultants in their clinics were delayed, he said.
He said that a patient suffering from a serious kidney ailment was given a date as far away as a year.
A source said that patients who managed to visit private clinics of consultants were charged heavily in the name of consultation fee and tests.
