PESHAWAR: The Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Peshawar, is hiring 150 more consultants to expand its tertiary care services and boost the institution-based practice (IBP) for which only 29 of the total 160 consultants at this hospital had opted in July last year under the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA) 2015.

The newly-appointed consultants will do IBP in line with the MTIRA. However, IBP is optional for the consultants who worked at the hospital before implementation of the MTI law.

The 1,900-bed hospital, the first to start IBP in July last year under the MTIRA 2015 enforced by the government in Jan 2016, has so far received 12,000 paying patients in the IBP. A total of 5,261 procedures, including surgeries, biopsies, echo, ETT, etc on private patients took place in the hospital, which is yet to attract patients to a desired level.

Official says 150 more consultants are being hired

The hospital is yet to have the desired number of specialists as 80 per cent of the patients are seen in IBP by four senior consultants.

Medical Director Prof Mukhtiar Zaman Afridi said that the new consultants would be deployed to ensure full-scale services in IBP.

“We will see a big jump in IBP patients after completion of the recruitment process. Most of the 80 consultants recently promoted as assistant professors would also join the IBP,” he said.

The IBP starts in the evening where patients pay consultation fee like private clinics, but they get quality services under one roof, he said.

Poor patients go to the consultant OPD where they are examined on Rs10 chit from 8:30am to 4:30pm, he said. General OPD runs round-the-clock, he said, adding that 40 consultants for 15 specialties were available in the OPD.

Presently, 150 patients turn up daily at the IBP, up from 20-25 patients when the IBP was started.

“We generated Rs28.8 million from IBP which is a major part of the MTIRA to utilise hospital resources and generate income from paying patients to be spent on those who cannot bear the cost of treatment,” he said.

Prof Afridi said that priority had been given to the infrastructure and human resource development to utilise the facilities for the benefit of patients. Average hospitalisation stay was 3.7 days and ranged between 1.1 to 5.2 days. Bed occupancy rate was 70.53 per cent whereas in children and gynae ward, it remained 116 per cent due to putting more patients on one bed, he said. The hospital needs Rs1.3 billion for free medication of all patients, he said.

“So far, Rs90 million have been spent to ensure provision of 15 items required for pain management of patients and Rs100 million will go to the same head till June,” he said.

Presently, 60 per cent of the patients received medicines. On average 3,649 patients daily visited the hospital in 2016, showing an increase of 800 patients compared to the previous year, he said.

In 2016, a total of 930,000 critical patients were seen at the accident and emergency department (AED), down from 1.4 million registered in 2015 with patients showing medical conditions, mother and child health, surgical and trauma, he said.

The biggest health facility spreading over 31 acres received Rs300 million from the government for renovation and refurbishment, while the Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex, with comparatively better civil infrastructure, got over Rs700 million each for the same purpose.

The MD said that they would get three floors of the 11-storey under-construction new medical block by March and three more till June due to which they would add 470 beds, including 200-bed AED, 24-bed ICU and 24 operation theatres.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2017