Doctors’ greed: Patients run between public, private labs

Chemists, private labs, fleecing patients in connivance with doctors at public hospitals.

ISLAMABAD:

The trend of referring patients to private laboratories and chemists is growing at public hospitals in the city. This is partly due to inadequate facilities and non-availability of life saving drugs, but mostly due to lust for money by doctors and lab technicians.

It has been learnt that doctors at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) refer patients to certain chemists for commissions.

According to sources at Pims, all antibiotics and life-saving drugs are available at the hospital, but patients, being unaware, blindly obey what doctors or the chemists tell them. In return, they get favours from pharmacists and drug companies, such as free trips to foreign countries and ‘gifts’. In addition, doctors also ask patients to go to specific laboratories for ‘authentic’ tests, sources revealed.

Shahid Hussain was forced to return to Sargodha with his father, as he could not bear the expenses for a heart surgery. “A person like me who works as a waiter at a roadside hotel and makes Rs2,500 per month cannot afford to buy medicines. The doctors asked me to arrange surgical equipment and medicine privately. All I could say was that I couldn’t afford them,” he said.

Razia Bibi whose daughter is admitted at Pims said, “Every time doctors give me a list of tests, they say I should get them done from private laboratories. I was shocked when they asked me to pay Rs4,000 for just one hepatitis test.”

An official working closely with the Pims laboratory said several medical tests are supposed to be done at Pims, but due to shortage of staff and facilities, they are being outsourced.

He said polymerase chain reactions for hepatitis C and HIV, tuberculosis and ferritin tests are not carried out at Pims, while private labs can charge from Rs2,500 to Rs10,000 for these tests.

Like medicines, most surgical items also have to be purchased from the market. A senior doctor, who wished not to be named, said patients have to buy stents for heart surgeries and screws and nails for orthopaedic surgeries.

Pims spokesperson Dr Waseem Khawaja admitted that a majority of the patients are unable to bear the cost of surgeries. He said efforts are being made to facilitate poor patients.

The Federal Government Dispensary in G-7 tells a similar story. It has been learnt that students who get admissions in government college hostels, are required to arrange medical certificates for which they are sent to the Polyclinic-affiliated dispensary. But the staff at the dispensary refers the students to certain laboratories in the locality to carry out their medical tests.

However, Dr Shaukat Kiani, the executive director of Polyclinic Hospital, said he was unaware of any such practice. “All tests are supposed to be carried out at the dispensary and in case the facility is not available, patients should be sent to Polyclinic.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd,  2012.