PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has banned public sector doctors from working in private hospitals located in less than 500-metre radius of their hospitals.

The ban was notified by provincial director-general (health services) Dr Shaukat Ali after a government’s doctor reportedly operated on an 84-year-old woman for cataract instead of the fractured upper limb at a private hospital early this month, according to officials.

They said the private hospital was just a stone’s throw from the Abbottabad District Headquarters Hospital, where the doctor was employed.

The notification read, “With reference to the incident report submitted by the regional director health services Hazara Division, all services had been suspended in the private hospital and a formal inquiry was under way.”

The DG directed all district health officers and medical superintendents of government hospitals to take strict action against the government doctors operating clinics in private hospitals located in less than 500 metres radius from the places of their duty.

Health dept orders strict action against ban violators

He insisted that the decision to ban the private practice of doctors near their hospitals was also in line with the Peshawar High Court’s directives.

Officials said the private hospital of Abbottabad in question was removed from the hospitals empanelled for the government’s Sehat Card Plus health insurance scheme.

They said the department had also asked the Health Care Commission to take strict action against violators of the ban.

Sources in the health department told Dawn that such directives were issued in the past as well but the doctors and other hospital employees continued to work in private hospitals near places of their duty even in the morning.

On April 17, the report of an inquiry by the health department revealed that a district specialist working in state-run District Headquarters Hospital Dir Upper operated on 775 people for appendicitis last year under the Sehat Card Plus programme in a nearby private hospital.

A total of 2,200 surgeries have taken place in the same hospital including 1,800 for appendicitis, it said.

According to the report, the surgeon received Rs30 million from the SCP, which is 70 per cent of the total amount earned by the hospital from the government free health insurance programme.

“The same surgeon also did 300 appendectomies at the Upper Dir DHQ under the SCP. As per international standards, the ratio of appendicitis is 1.2 per cent of surgeries in any country but its percentage was 70 in the private hospital.”

The report revealed that two to three people of the same families were subjected to appendix operations in the same health facility.

Owners of the private hospital rejected the report and insisted that they had shared the “facts” with authorities.

They also said that even before the introduction of the SCP, around six appendix patients underwent surgery in DHQ hospital free of charge showing the disease had a high prevalence rate in the population.

After the inquiry, the surgeon was de-listed from SCP’s approved doctors. The private hospital was owned by senior doctors working in government hospitals of the same district, officials said.

They said many doctors left government hospitals during duty hours for private clinics to perform ultrasounds and other pathological tests, a violation of rules.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2023