New BoG finds doctors charging patients at LRH OPD

PESHAWAR: The newly appointed Board of Governors (BoG) has unearthed an alleged scandal at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) where some doctors used to charge patients at the outpatient departments (OPDs) and treat them as private patients of the institution-based private practice (IBP), a BoG member, Prof Dr Musa Kalim told The News.

“This is a major scandal in which many doctors and some officials of the hospital were involved. It is a big crime to charge the poor patients coming to the hospital OPDs in the morning,” said Prof Musa Kalim.

He said the BoG decided to stop forthwith all IBP activities in the morning as it was a public sector hospital and they wanted patients to get quality of services in the OPDs free of cost.

The BoG on Tuesday held its meeting with Prof Dr Mohammad Zubair Khan in the chair, where they found various irregularities of serious nature in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s oldest and largest public sector health facility, LRH.

“The IBP consultants are taking IBP incentives plus salary plus sehat card shares. But still attending IBP patients during government assigned regular duty hours from 8am to 4pm which is not only a violation of the Peshawar High Court directives but also depriving poor patients coming to hospital of free treatment,” Prof Musa Kalim explained.

According to him, the IBP counters would remain open in the morning for getting appointments for IBP, where touts of the IBP doctors would attract patients in the OPDs to the IBP clinics and receive their commission.

The IBP doctors would also undertake surgical procedures in the morning and would earn huge profits from sehat cards.

“The gynae department was stated to be an area where nobody would bother to check what’s going on. The senior gynaecologist used to do all her private surgeries in the morning and it can be verified from the hospital record,” a senior official of the hospital told The News on condition of anonymity.

He said similar practices were being used in other departments as well.Governor Ghulam Ali took note of these malpractices when he visited LRH recently and stopped IBP services in the morning.When reached, Mohammad Asim Khan, the LRH media manager, told The News that the BoG had stopped the IBP operations in the morning so that patients can be given free services.