HYDERABAD: Civil Hospital goes choosy on lab tests
By M. H. Khan
HYDERABAD, June 3: The poor indoor patients of the Civil Hospital, Hyderabad, face financial hardships when they are referred to the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory by registrars of different wards of the hospital instead of its pathology laboratory.
Charges of the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory, run by the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, for different investigations and tests are higher than that of the pathology laboratory.
Hospital sources said on Tuesday that if such a situation persisted than the hospital administration would close down the pathology laboratory as had been decided earlier by it, but the idea was dropped temporarily.
If this happened, then the patients would have to get tests conducted at much higher rates.
Sources said that the future of the pathology laboratory hangs in the balance as a huge drop-out of indoor patients has been witnessed. These patients are getting investigations and tests conducted from the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory as per instructions of registrars of different wards.
They elucidated that the patients approach the pathology laboratory only for those tests which are free of cost.
Before the establishment of the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory, the pathology laboratory was conducting a good number of tests of cardiac enzymes, blood CP, electrolytes, etc., but now their numbers have diminished.
A hospital source said that there used to be a turnout of 12 to 15 patients for cardiac enzymes, but now hardly three to four patients come to the pathology laboratory. Same is the case for tests of electrolytes, APTT, urea, sugar, PT, etc.
The pathology laboratory charges a nominal amount for various medical tests, conducting, in all, 85 tests. Of these, 71 are free of cost.
Of 14 chargeable tests, even 50 per cent of them are not charged in view of the financial position of the patient.
Despite this big relief for patients, the laboratory generates an income of Rs500,000 per month from just 14 tests.
Out of this amount, Rs300,000 are utilized for purchase of chemicals, reagents and maintenance. The remaining amount is deposited in the hospital’s social welfare fund.
The sources said that in case chargeable tests are continuously referred to the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory, then one day the hospital administration would have a genuine reason for closing down the pathology laboratory because it would not be able to meet the expenses for tests which are not charged.
Currently, the pathology laboratory overcomes expenses from its income of just 14 tests.
The Diagnostic and Research Laboratory neither conducts any test free of cost nor offers any subsidy to indoor patients.
However, Dr Rehman, of the paediatrics ward, claimed that in special cases and on the request of the registrars of his ward, the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory does not charge fee from poor patients.
Similarly, the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory does not contribute to the hospital’s welfare for using the premises of the Civil Hospital, the source said.
During his first visit to the Civil Hospital, Hyderabad, the adviser to chief minister for health, Noman Saigal, had also expressed his reservations over the fact as to how land was given to the LUMHS for setting up the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory in the Civil Hospital’s premises. He had asked for a report regarding it.
The registrars of different wards have obtained printed receipts of the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory, which are given to patients for securing tests from there.
“After realizing that tests are not conducted free at the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory, the patients ultimately turn up at the pathology laboratory because they are not able to pay such high charges for tests,” a source said.
For instance, the existing hospital’s laboratory conducts a bone marrow test free of cost, while the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory charges Rsl75 for it. The Diagnostic and Research Laboratory charges Rs190 for a test of cardiac enzymes, whereas the pathology laboratory charges Rs40 for it. The hospital’s pathology laboratory does not charge a paisa for blood culture, while the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory charges patients Rs90 for it.
