Poor patients at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) have complained about the hospital management for forcing them to conduct various blood tests and X-rays from private laboratories.
Shahid Ali, a 20-year-old, whose father was admitted in the hospital, told this scribe that he brought his father from Murree to the PIMS to get his free treatment, but he got astonished as he had to pay from his pocket all expenses.
He said that being a poor he could neither bear the expenses of conducting costly computerised tomography (CT) scan from outside nor he could buy the expensive medicines.
Dejected Ali added that the rates of various blood tests and X-rays were quite nominal, but doctors have given too much time for test; hence he had to conduct the tests from private laboratories, where they charged too much.
However, the some patients expressed pleasure over the inauguration of the newly-established 16-bed emergency block in the PIMS and hoped that it would help ease their woes considerably.
They said that ultrasound, X-ray and other test facilities were available there; hence the problems would be addressed to some extent. Some of them even complained about lack of medicines as they were asked to buy medicines from private medical stories.
The patients said that they had been either sent to private laboratories for tests or asked to pay for ultra sounds, X-rays and CT scan.
Another female patient, who was prescribed CT scan was given four months time, said that she could not wait for so long or she could not afford to conduct test from private laboratories. The patient said with heavy heart that she did not know what to do in such situation.
The sources in the hospital said that the doctors often referred the tests to private laboratories, because they had links with the private laboratories.
Besides, they said that the staff was too short to conduct all the tests because there was huge burden on them so they either preferred to refer the patients to private laboratories or give maximum time to get rid of them.
However a senior doctor said that doctors and management should not only be blamed for the situation, because health never remained in the priority list of the government ever, as no adequate funds were provided to the sector to ensure provision of free treatment to the poor patients.
A laboratory technician in the hospital told this scribe that they were taking 400 to 500 X-rays daily, so it was impossible for them to entertain all the patients. He said that patients could not even wait for a day what to talk about months.