PESHAWAR, Dec 22: NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani has called upon doctors to provide better services to patients and dispense medicines free of charge to the poor. “Doctors should keep their hospitals clean and provide healthcare and medicines to the poor as the government is spending more on healthcare for the benefit of poor …The complaints of patients must be addressed,” Mr Durrani said.

The chief minister was speaking at a meeting held in his secretariat on the city’s three major hospitals, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).

He asked the health department to have a mechanism in place to redress complaints so that patients did not have to go from pillar to post and suffer unnecessarily.

“Doctors should behave with hapless patients and mend their behaviour as the ailing need more affection,” he said. The chief minister also urged administrators of the three tertiary healthcare hospitals to “fulfill their responsibilities” and asked their subordinates to follow them.

Mr Durrani warned doctors and healthcare managers that the government would take action against those who were complacent about healthcare objectives.

Mr Durrani said that he and the health minister would keep a vigilant eye on the tertiary healthcare system in Peshawar. He asked the chief executive of HMC to sit with the finance department and place before it the financial demands of the medical complex so that requisite funding could be earmarked.

FUNDING: The chief minister has approved Rs90 million for an MRI and CT scan at Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH). He told health officials in a meeting at his secretariat that poor and hapless patients should be the main beneficiaries of the MRI and CT scan. He also agreed with the public-private sector partnership to arrange MRI and CT scan at LRH.