Provincial health policies: senior doctors leaving K-P hospitals

PESHAWAR:

Due to the faulty health policies of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government senior most doctors are leaving the hospitals, causing widespread resentment among the general public and patients.

In the past two years at least 56 senior doctors left the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) alone which is the largest health facility of its kind in the province. Talking to The Express Tribune, official sources said that the health policies of the current and previous provincial governments forced many senior and talented doctors to leave the hospitals.

“They either opted for premature retirement, long leave or even quit their jobs and joined private hospitals,” he said, adding that those doctors provided free medical checkup at the hospitals OPD but now patients have to consult them in their private clinics or private hospitals where they have to pay Rs2,000 per checkup, not to speak of laboratory tests.

“The provincial government introduced Medical and Teaching Institutions Act in 2015 which was implemented on experimental basis at Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC),” said another official, adding that around 11 hospitals have been given financial autonomy in the province so far which means it has been extended to 11 hospitals till date.

The Board of Governors of these hospitals have been given full administrative powers but despite this autonomy hospitals are plagued with problems. “There are reports of irregularities of the BoG and some are accused of favoritism forcing senior doctors to leave all these three important hospitals,” he said.

LRH, being the largest hospital, is the worst hit by this process which was declared a model hospital by Prime Minister Imran Khan but it is yet to achieve that status despite the passage of seven long years.

LRH adopted a policy of new recruitments but in the process it lost almost its entire batch of senior most doctors.

“The number of petition against the hospital has multiplied several fold in the recent years,” said the official.

He added that after the senior doctors quit, patients are now on the mercy of junior and inexperienced doctors.

“Some of the doctors were against the government health policies while others left because they were not willing to close down their private clinics. When they declined to obey the order, most of them were removed as department heads and were made subordinate to their juniors.

“At LRH the cardiology department is closed after senior doctors left it which is really worrisome for the poor patients,” he said.

“If a senior doctor doesn’t agree with government policies they should have been taken into confidence about it but the hospital administration started taking action instead against those who voiced their dissatisfaction,” an official of LRH said, adding that it forced most doctors to go for early retirement.

Same is the case with KTH where the new act has caused more problems than solving the old ones.

Doctors are also leaving HMC. When contacted a spokesman of LRH said that the resignations of the senior doctors had been painted in wrong context by the media.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2021.