Poor patients at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science (PIMS) are forced to undertake various medical tests at private labs instead of the institute’s own labs on the demand of doctors. It had been observed that the doctors at the PIMS were not satisfied with the lab tests conducted in hospital’s own lab facilities. However, the poor patients were unable to afford the expenses of getting their blood tested from the costly private labs. Per details, the doctors were intentionally referring the patients to the outside facilities to undergo blood tests due to the indifferent attitude of the hospital staff and underhand dealing of the doctors with the private laboratories. The patients who were present inside the hospital confirmed that the doctors were rejecting the blood test reports issued by the PIMS laboratory, while they were prescribed to perform various medical tests from a certain few private laboratories. The patients said that the costs of private laboratories were too high and they could not afford the expenses on a continuous basis. While talking to this scribe, the PIMS Executive Director (ED) Dr Riaz A Warraich said that the influx of medical tests at the PIMS had increased ten times, therefore, despite the efficient team of pathologists and radiologists available at the facility, the quality and standard of the tests were becoming highly questionable. “Ninety percent of the tests are carried out at the PIMS laboratories and we are overloaded with the increasing number of patients due to which quality of the tests cannot be maintained,” he added. Patients at the PIMS were compelled to head towards private laboratories for CT scans, MRI, ultrasound and various other important but expensive tests. Despite being the largest and prestigious health organisation of the federal capital which was supposed to provide relief to the poor people, it seemed that the institute was committed to increasing their problems even further. The PIMS had been receiving fees of Rs 2,500 for CT scan and Rs 1,500 for ultrasound test which were the same as those of the private labs. The PIMS ED replied to this situation by saying that the government only charged the patients for the films only and these charges would be written off on the recommendation of the ED for the needy patients. When this issue was discussed with the patients, they were of the view that no patient was ever informed about relaxation of lab test fees by the hospital management. Meanwhile, despite repeated attempts to talk with the Ministry of Capital Administration and Development (CAD) Secretary Riffat Shaheen Qazi regarding the above mentioned issue, she was not available for any comment.
