Punjab orders consultant nod for patient referrals

Consultants will have to justify their reasons for referring a patient to a tertiary care hospital

RAWALPINDI: In a bid to lower the patient load on tertiary care hospitals in the province, the Punjab government has taken the unprecedented decision of conditioning patient referral from primary and secondary healthcare centre to large hospitals to the recommendation of a medical consultant.

These directions were issued by Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmeen Rashid on Sunday in a letter which has been sent to all chief executive officers (CEOs) and medical superintendents (MSs) of all district headquarters (DHQs) and tehsil headquarters (THQs) hospitals. The letter emphasised the need to give top priority to the treatment of patients, however, it banned healthcare centres from referring patients to large hospitals without fulfilling certain pre-requisites.

It added that all deployed consultant doctors in the healthcare facilities will now have to be available on-call around the clock for the entire week apart from ensuring that at least one consultant doctors is present in the facility in the event any emergency case is brought.

The directive added that apart from fulfilling the condition of consultants signing off on any referral from the facility, they will further have to submit a document containing concrete reasons for doing so.

“It has been observed that the unavailability of consultants in emergency wards of health facilities or during review in emergency cases across the province has become a regular practice while it has also been learnt that a large number of patients are referred to large, tertiary care hospitals in the cities, who could be easily treated in the related healthcare facilities without any real reason,” the letter said. As a consequence, it said that this has increased the influx of patients at the government-run hospitals in the cities, overloading their systems and adversely affecting them.

Day, night shifts for MCH

To complete the long-pending mother-child hospital (MCH) in Rawalpindi, the government has decided to complete its construction as soon as possible, employing shifts around the clock.

This was stated by the Federal Parliamentary Secretary Sheikh Rashid Shafique on Sunday while visiting his native constituency in Rawalpindi on Sunday. He added that with renewed interest in the project and expedited construction work, they expect that the healthcare facility will become fully operational by next June.

Shafique added that the new hospital dedicated to mothers and children will be equipped with all essential equipment and wards.

The lawmaker added that once complete, it will be the only hospital in the garrison city which will feature 18 operation theatres (OTs) and have the capacity of conducting 90 operations in a day.

Regarding the operational plan of the healthcare facility, Shafique said that the outpatient department (OPD) of the hospital is expected to start receiving patients by January after the necessary machinery has been procured.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2019.