PESHAWAR, May 20: The government has allocated Rs60 million for providing free healthcare facilities to poor patients at the teaching hospitals of the province, health minister Inayatullah Khan said here on Thursday.

The breakup of the amount, allocated to the teaching hospitals is as follows: The Lady Reading Hospital (Rs25 million), the Khyber Teaching Hospital (Rs12.5 million), the Hayatabad Medical Complex (Rs12.5 million) and the Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad, (Rs12.5 million).

To put check on the misuse of the fund, he said, patients had been divided into three categories. The critically-ill patients would be designated 'red' and would be given all drugs from the hospitals' casualty departments.

Patients, who would be marked 'yellow' would stay under observation at the hospitals' emergency departments for 24 hours during which time they would be given free medicines while patients with minor problems would be designated 'green' and would be entitled to free consultation services only after which they would be sent home.

The minister said the programme had been launched on an experimental basis and would be started at all district headquarter hospitals from 2005. He said that he would monitor the hospitals to ensure that these medicines were not misused.