LAHORE: Caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi has removed the Punjab Institute of Cardiology Lahore Executive Director (ED) Prof Bilal Sheikh Mohyuddin on complaints of shifting the Sehat Sahulat Programme patients from the public sector institute to the private hospitals and use of injectable medicines for the heart attack patients instead of treating them through primary angioplasty.

An official privy to the development said the above mentioned two complaints were going unnoticed despite repeated warnings to the institute when the authorities concerned were informed that a ‘mafia’ in the government cardiac institute was transferring heart patients to private hospitals to get better shares under the Sehat Sahulat Programme.

The Punjab government has decided to extend the scope of inquiries to the other public hospitals across the province following the reports that a nexus in private-public hospitals was shifting patients enrolled under the programme to the private health facilities.

About the PIC, he said, despite being the premier cardiac hospital of Punjab, it could perform primary angioplasty of 40pc of the visiting heart attack patients while 60pc patients were administered treatment through streptokinase injections. The PIC doctors ignored standard global practices that the mortality rate of heart patients undergoing immediate coronary angioplasty was less than those getting treatment of intravenous streptokinase.

Complaints against him include use of injections instead of angioplasty

To ensure the standard guidelines, the Punjab government had established a monitoring team comprising health minister, secretary health, adviser to health and heads of all the major cardiology institutes to monitor implementation of the CM’s above-mentioned initiative that all the heart attack patients coming to public sector hospitals of Punjab would undergo primary angioplasty. Earlier, the official said, people who suffered a heart attack would get a blood thinner injection, namely Streptokinase, which would be effective in just around 30 to 40pc of patients and rest of patients would suffer from complications of a heart attack.

Despite the number of meetings held in this regard, many major public institutes, particularly the PIC Lahore, could not fulfill the given targets, the official said.

About the other factor that led to low numbers of primary angioplasty in public sector hospitals, he said, the CM Punjab observed that a major chunk of emergency patients was shifted out of the public sector to private catheterization labs for lucrative financial incentives for the consultants.

The source said the nexus of the mafia operating in both public and private hospitals included consultants/doctors and the paramedics.

The situation came to the limelight when some inquiries suggested that there has been mushrooming of cath angio labs across Punjab since the Sehat Sahulat Programme was introduced in January 2022 for the cardiac patients too.

There were 30 to 40 private cath labs across Punjab in 2021 and the number has now reached 100, showing the shocking increase in the wake of introduction of the SSP programme.

Of them, 25 private cath angio labs were currently operating in the private sector health facilities of Lahore as compared to just eight labs functioning in the public sector hospitals.

Following the reports, the official said, it was estimated that 70pc of the public sector hospitals business/revenue has been shifted to the private sector at the expense of deterioration of public hospitals which are on the verge of collapse. He said the government was further apprised that the PIC Lahore used to close down the facility of angioplasty for patients at night while the same facility was available round the clock at the private hospitals.

The consultants of the PIC Lahore used to visit the hospital twice a week to complete 42-54 hour duty to spend rest of time for practice at their private clinics to attend patients under the Sehat Sahulat Programme. He said that according to the officially laid down system of the public sector hospitals, the consultants were bound to complete above-given duty time by ensuring their presence daily in the morning, evening and night shifts according to the duty roster.

At the PIC, Dr Mohiyuddin has been replaced by Dr Ahmad Noman, the professor of cardiology at the PIC, as the Punjab health department has given him additional charge of the executive director of the institute.

Interestingly, Prof Noman has also been penalised along with other senior medics under the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability (PEEDA) Act in the scam of use of expired stents on cardiac patients at the PIC.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2023