PESHAWAR, Nov 23: Most patients visiting consultants have said that they have not been getting proper attention and treatment by them, neither at their private clinics nor at government sector hospitals.
Many said that they had been going from one doctor to another in search of better treatment, but have often been disappointed.
A case in point is that of a woman’s who has been regularly visiting a renowned gynaecologist. According to her husband the doctor initially told her that her pregnancy was normal, but she developed complications and was referred to Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) where she gave birth to a dead baby.
The dejected woman said: “I visited the gynaecologist many times. But I was always seen by her assistants.”
According to World Health Organization rules, consultants are required to listen to the patient’s complaints attentively, both at their clinics and the state-run hospitals. Under the law, every patient must be given 15 minutes, but here the situation was so bad that the term “patient” has been replaced by the word “client”.
In Europe where patients filed petition in court even for needle-prick and the doctors were fined millions of dollars in damages to the patients or their relatives. But in Pakistan, the people do not go to court for such matters, mainly because of ignorance.
About 10 years back, a professor of Islamia College died of an overdose of anaesthesia. His son being a doctor, took the case to court.
The inability of the aggrieved people to sue the doctors, coupled with the complex judicial system have enabled the consultants to escape their “crimes”.
Mohammad Humayun of Mardan said: “A doctor told me that I had Hepatitis and advised me some investigations, the results of which were normal. But the doctor insisted I had Hepatitis and began treating me for it.” But another consultant did not think so.
One Raees said that his brother was admitted to medical unit of Lady Reading Hospital on Nov 1 for fever. He was given intravenous antibiotics and other drugs for 10 days which helped subside his fever temporarily, but his actual problems was never diagnosed.
