PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday directed the director general (health services) to hold a meeting with the representatives of major private hospitals to fix nominal rates of dengue tests over the reports suggesting that some hospitals are charging exorbitant fee for the purpose.

Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mohammad Ghazanfar Khan observed that the private sector hospitals had not been playing effective role in the present situation emerging due to outbreak of dengue in the provincial capital and other areas.

The bench directed the relevant officials to hold a meeting on Friday and fix a nominal fee for tests and health facilities for dengue patients in private hospitals.

The bench fixed Oct 5 for the next hearing into a petition filed by lawyer Saifullah Muhib Kakakhel, who requested the court to direct the respondents, including provincial government, health secretary, local government secretary and Peshawar deputy commissioner, to take immediate steps for dengue eradication.

The petitioner requested the court to order the government to take both preventive and curative measures for containing dengue.

The bench also directed the chairman of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Care Commission to appear in person on the next hearing. It observed that the chairman had not appear before the court so far in the instant case and had also not taken any concrete step on the matter.

The representatives of Rehman Medical Institute, North West General Hospital, Mercy International, Kuwait Teaching Hospital, Shaukat Khanum Laboratory, etc appeared before the bench and explained their respective positions.

Justice Waqar Seth reminded an additional director (health services) that in 1970s, the government used to carry out aerial fumigation spray and observed why the current government couldn’t do it.

He directed the government to provide the relevant documents to suggest why it had stopped aerial spray.

Saifullah Kakakhel said private hospitals and medical colleges while registering themselves as trust agreed that in epidemics, they would offer free health facilities but in the current case, they didn’t do so and instead, charged exorbitant fee from patients.

A representative of Shaukat Khanum Lab informed the court that they had charged only Rs80 from dengue patients in Punjab when it was spread there.

The additional director (health services) said free care was provided to suspected and confirmed dengue cases in government facilities.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2017