PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department is planning to give incentives to the consultants doing institution-based practice (IBP) at the Khyber Teaching Hospital on the pattern of Lady Reading Hospital to further improve the patient care.

“We will discuss giving incentives to the consultants with a committee to be formed by the KTH administration after which we will send a summary to the chief minister. It is my commitment,” secretary health Abid Majeed told a ceremony organised to mark one year of the completion of IBP at KTH on Saturday. He said that the basic idea behind the IBP was to utilise the space and facilities for the patients’ benefit after 2:00pm and they had been successful so far in this regard.

Speaking as chief guest, the health secretary said that they were also considering separate infrastructure for the IBP to make use of the under-utilized costly equipments for the improvement of patient care. He said that the launch of Sehat Sahulat Programme under which the patients were getting free treatment and IBP had led to marked improvement in the patient care.

New programmes have led to improvement in patient care, says health secretary

“We want to reduce expenses the patients make from their own pockets. We are also in the process to upgrade primary and secondary level facilities to provide diagnostic and treatment services to the people in their own areas through joint efforts,” he said.

Khyber Medical College dean Prof Noorul Iman said that the government should fulfil the promises it made with the IBP consultants as they had left their well-established clinics to make the new system run. He hoped that the health secretary would take into account the issues being faced by the IBP staff and would extend them facilities.

“The government should award benefits to the consultants doing IBP at KTH and Hayatabad Medical Complex on the pattern of LRH to motivate others to join it,” he said.

Prof Noorul Iman, who practices medicine under IBP at KTH, said that the new system was meant to take money from the paying patients and divert the same to the treatment of poor ones.

Dr Hamza Ali Khan said that a total of 24,107 patients were examined under IBP and 3003 surgeries performed in the past one year through which the hospital earned Rs44 million. He said that of this amount Rs3.3 million income tax was given to the government. He said that the patients paid Rs600 each as consultation fee, far less than private clinics outside the hospitals, of which Rs100 was retained by the hospital.

KTH medical director Prof Dr Roohul Muqim, director Dr Nek Dad, Dr Saud and others said on the occasion that the patients got standard and quality services by highly qualified people under one roof. They said that majority of the private clinics lacked ICUs, CCUs and services of anaesthetists while the IBP patients got pathological and radiological services provided by trained technicians and consultants. With the launch of IBP, the patients now get the services of specialist doctors for 18 hours a day, they said.

LRH director Dr Khalid Masud, Khyber College of Dentistry dean Prof Ghulam Rasool and KTH BoG’s member Prof Shahjahan were also in attendance.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2018