‘No private practice for doctors at public hospitals’

Health Secy irked at slow pace of anti-mosquito spray campaigns, and on improvement of services at public hospitals.

LAHORE:

Doctors working at public hospitals will not be allowed to run private clinics and hospitals. Action will be taken against doctors and paramedics making patients visit them at their clinics and not treating them at public hospitals, Health Secretary Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan said on Saturday.

He said the executive district officers of health would be held responsible for the performance of public hospitals and rural health centres in their respective districts.

Khan said medical superintendents should control unnecessary expenditures and ensure that there was no wastage of public funds. The focus, he said, should be on improvement of services at public hospitals.  He said hospital premises should be protected against encroachments upon. He asked the medical superintendents to ensure punctuality and discipline. He said doctors and paramedics would not be allowed to misbehave with patients and their relatives.

He was speaking at a meeting to review arrangements at public health facilities to deal with a possible flood in Rajanpur. Khan also reviewed progress in ongoing development projects, arrangements for malaria and dengue fever control and polio vaccination programmes. He expressed his displeasure over the slow pace of anti-mosquito spray campaigns. He directed officials concerned to conclude the campaigns without any further delay.

Additional Health Secretary (Establishment) Daud Muhammad Khan; Additional Secretary (Development) Moazzam Usman; Additional Secretary (Technology) Dr Mushtaq Sulehriya; Additional Secretary (Administration) Khursheed Zaidi; and Punjab Director General (Health) Dr Muhammad Aslam Chaudhry were also present at the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2011.