Curbing unethical practices in healthcare: Health ministry bars medical professionals from travelling abroad to attend conferences, seminars

ISLAMABAD: In order to curb unethical practices in the healthcare sector, the federal health authorities have barred healthcare professionals serving at public health facilities from attending conferences and seminars abroad, asking them to undertake that their foreign trips were not being sponsored by private companies and donors.

“In future, all requests of ex-Pakistan leave forwarded to this ministry shall be accompanied by an affidavit by the concerned officers that their foreign visits are not for attending conferences/seminars and that their visit is not sponsored by any private company/donor etc,” says a circular issued by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (MoNHS,R&C).

The NHS,R&C apparently issued these directives to prevent healthcare professionals from travelling abroad on ‘luxury trips’ sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies as favours in exchange for prescribing their medicines but these directives would remain ineffective, experts claimed.

“First of all, this circular bars healthcare professionals from attending conferences and seminars abroad, which is ridiculous. Secondly, it mentions funding from the private companies and donors, which includes the World Health Organisation (WHO), Unicef and other international agencies, which regularly arrange foreign trips for the government officials including the health ministry officials,” a senior healthcare professional at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad said.

The healthcare professional, who requested anonymity, claimed that majority of public healthcare professionals have private passports as private citizens and they regularly travel abroad on these passports, while many have dual nationalities and they even don’t require Pakistani passports for travelling abroad.

“So, if a physician or surgeon wants to travel abroad, he or she has to report sick or apply for a week’s leave and leave abroad of their private passports,” the healthcare professional said, adding that in some cases, attending international conferences and seminars is immensely important for surgeons and other professionals including radiologists to know about advancements in their relative fields.

“In public sector, salaries are meagre and healthcare professionals can’t travel abroad on their own expense. Sometimes, they have to attend conferences and seminars to learn about advancements in the fields of medicine, surgery, oncology, radiology and many other specialties,” he added.

Criticising the ‘ridiculous’ notifications being issued by the health ministry, the healthcare professional maintained that the ministry’s directives don’t apply on the hundreds of thousands of private health professionals who were prescribing medicines and diagnostics to hundreds of thousands of patients in exchange for monetary benefits from the pharmaceutical companies.

“The issue of conflict of interest in healthcare is very complex and deep-rooted. There is no check on the healthcare professionals who are serving in the private sector or running their own clinics and prescribing medicines and therapies worth hundreds of thousands of rupees to the patients. Similarly, now diagnostic labs are offering huge money to the healthcare professionals for unnecessary diagnostic tests,” the healthcare professional added.

On the other hand, the health ministry officials, including secretaries, directors and their advisors and consultants were free to visit abroad, although many of them hold no medical degrees, he lamented and called for holding a national conference to discuss the issue of conflict of interest and unethical practices in the healthcare sector.

“I have seen patients who were prescribed medicines, including antibiotics, mineral and vitamins of thousands of rupees, just for the scratches on their bodies. People are being prescribed MRIs, CT scans, ultrasound and other radiological procedures as well as pathological tests by the healthcare professionals in exchange for financial benefits, which should come to an end now,” the healthcare professional added.