Absence of legislation to check prices in private-sector hospitals, laboratories and clinics led the Punjab government to invoke the dreadful Section 144 to control prices of dengue tests, bringing the private health sector at loggerheads with the provincial regime, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Taking account of the fast-spreading dengue epidemic and an increasing number of suspects coming for blood tests, the Punjab government enforced Section 144 in Lahore and other districts to control the dengue outbreak. The decision was taken in an emergency committee meeting chaired by Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif to find out ways how to control the eruption of dengue that affected more than 12,000 people across the province. The committee also decided Rs 90 would be charged for dengue test at all public and private-sector hospitals in the city besides issuing other directions as well.
This created a lot of confusion and unrest among stakeholders from the private health sector with a few of them also moved the Lahore High Court alleging overcharging was being done at Ittefaq Hospital as well. The court issued directions to private laboratories to comply with government orders to cope with the crisis situation. Legal experts maintained that the government had the authority of impose Section 144 in such situations, as has been created by the outbreak of dengue. They said that it was also within the ambit of the government to fix the prices for as long as the section was imposed.
Commenting on the issue, experts on drug regulation said that there was no standard operation procedure, legislation, regulatory authority or parameters defined to fix the prices being charged by private laboratories and clinics conducting blood tests of dengue suspects. They said the fate of the Drug Regulations Act still hanged in the balance despite a lapse of so much time since devolution of the Ministry of Health to provinces under the 18th Constitutional Amendment. They said the Centre had retained the drug regulations while the Punjab government demanded the devolution of these powers.
“This uncertainty has created a lot of confusion among all stakeholders. The provincial regime should do legislation to regulate the private health sector and fix prices because dengue is just one case, proper legislation is required to cope with such issues in the long term. The government has passed the healthcare act last year but still no progress has been done to hire health commissioners,” they added.
Punjab Health Parliamentary Secretary Saeed Elahi said the matter had been discussed in a recent meeting with the CM and work was being done on “war-footings” to cope with dengue. He said the government realised the difficulty and an advertisement had already been given to hire health commissioners and they will start working right after coming out of the present crisis situation.
