We read in the national dailies about the sad plight of government hospitals. Most such reports indicate that the government doctors have turned their homes into private hospitals and while drawing thousands of rupees in salaries from public exchequer, they care nothing about poor patients but try to divert them to their private clinics.
This seems only natural because the Punjab government itself encourages its doctors to indulge in private practice. The chief minister of Punjab has never done anything to set this situation right. The poor condition of government hospitals in general can be well assessed by visiting the DHQ hospital Muzaffargarh where it can be confirmed to be deflecting most of the poor patients to private hospital-cum-home with nobody to challenge their ill-motivated use of authority.
MUHAMMAD SAFDAR
Muzaffargarh
