PESHAWAR: Lack of emergency health care services at the private hospitals has been causing complications to patients that force them to go to teaching hospitals for further treatment, according to doctors.

“There is no intensive care unit (ICU) in the Dabgari Gardens where 80 per cent of the private hospitals are located. Over 200 small and big operations and biopsies take place in more than two dozen operation theatres daily, but patients suffer when they develop complications,” a senior consultant told Dawn. The patients have to suffer in case of emergencies due to unavailability of ICU, CCU and other facilities needed for life-saving procedures at the hospitals, he said.

The situation with regard to functioning of the private hospitals elsewhere in the city is no different.

Women with post-delivery complications often land in the teaching hospitals due to unavailability of ICUs and other essential emergency support services in private hospitals, a physician said. Infants are also rushed frequently to the teaching facilities as the ill-equipped hospitals lack the desired infrastructure, he said.

He said that majority of the hospitals did not have the required setup for emergency patients due to which patients developed problems.

Patients developing complications often have to go to teaching hospitals

A surgeon said that he performed only simple operations at the private hospital in the evening because he could not put the lives of chronic patients at risk. “We do all complicated operations in the government hospital in the morning because we can manage emergencies easily there,” he said.

He said that the patients were examined by physicians, cardiologists, etc to see if they were fit for anesthesia before being operated upon by surgeons at the teaching hospitals, but in private hospitals such protocols weren’t followed.

All the privately-owned medical centres run their own network of clinical laboratories, X-ray, Ultrasound and other diagnostic procedures, etc where the patients were sent from the clinics. Most of such labs operated unauthorised in the absence of any mechanism by the government to check their working.

Diabetic and hypertensive patients are the worst sufferers at the private centre. “The private hospital lack resuscitation services, and trained and regular staff to look after seriously-ill patients,” he said.

At most of the labs at the private centre, hepatitis ‘B’ and ‘C’ tests are done on ICT – an old method in the presence of Aliza, a new worldwide technique, which leads to infections. “People are also being referred to the government hospitals due to severe infections of wounds after surgeries,” he said.

The KP health department has been dragging its feet on the Health Care Commission (HCC) Act 2015, implementation of which PTI chairman Imran Khan wants at the earliest.

The HCC was initially described as a compressive law to check private hospitals and later amendments were proposed, which are awaited.

Sources said that the health department was under pressure to seek magisterial powers for the HCC through amendments, but they added that there was opposition because powers of arrest and prosecution would lead to arbitrariness. Powers to impose penalties on the violators is the domain of court, they said. The HCC has been notified five months ago, but is yet to start working.

Dr Mohammad Zafar, chairman board of governors HCC, told Dawn that the amendments had been proposed by experts to make the law effective. He said that the commission would set quality standards for each and every outlet in the private sector so that patients could receive quality care.

Dr Zafar said that action against unauthorised private hospitals was in progress under the deputy commissioners. “Once the HCC is fully in place, we will be able to streamline the operations of private hospitals,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 14th , 2015

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