LAHORE: A patient feedback report got by the Chief Minister’s Special Monitoring Unit (SMU) has blatantly exposed the falling treatment standards at the teaching hospitals across the province when it transpired that 719 patients out of total 1,976 complained that they were not provided with free medicines while 622 said that the duty doctors didn’t treat them properly. It means 36 percent complained of missing facility of free medicines while 31pc complained against lack of treatment by the doctors in public sector hospitals.

The report reveals Mayo Hospital Lahore was at the top among others where the most number of patients (54) filed complaints of non-cooperation of the doctors, followed by 52 in the Nishtar Hospital Multan and 48 in the Children’s Hospital Lahore.

Similarly, Sahiwal Teaching Hospital, Sheikh Zayed Rahim Yar Khan, Jinnah Hospital Lahore, Bahawalpur Victoria Hospital, and Punjab Institute of Cardiology were the other leading public sector teaching institutions where most of the patients filed complaints against the doctors.

The SMU has submitted ‘Patient Feedback Report on Tertiary Care Hospitals of Punjab’ (a copy available with Dawn) to Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. The report was also sent to the Punjab health minister and the health secretary, seeking appropriate action against those found negligent in the patients’ feedback.

Official feedback survey reveals other issues also like rude behaviour of staff, long wait, bribe

“A detailed report outlining the corrective measures and action taken should be submitted to the SMU,” reads the report, stating that these concerns should also be rectified promptly.

As per the report, the SMU has been gathering citizens’ feedback via outbound calls to ensure the efficient delivery of the services to the citizens. The unit conducted the analysis of the feedback calls made to the patient based on the data provided by the department of teaching hospitals in Punjab.

About the complaints of non-availability of free medicines, the report said that the Mayo Hospital Lahore was again at the top with 94 patients submitting their serious grievances in this respect followed by Shaikh Zayed Hospital Rahim Yar Khan where 75 patients filed such complaints. Fifty-nine patients of the Jinnah Hospital Lahore, 55 each of Nishtar Hospital Multan and Sahiwal Teaching Hospital, 51 of Behawalpur Victoria and 50 patients of the Children Hospital Lahore also complained that they were forced to buy medicines from the private pharmacies.

About the multiple complaints, the SMU was told that the Mayo Hospital was again at the top among other teaching hospitals where 191 patients expressed their grievances, followed by Children Hospital Lahore with 156 and Shaikh Zayed Hospital Rahim Yar Khan with 154.

The miscellaneous complaints were related to the unavailability of free medicines, bad attitude of the doctors, allied staff, security guards, long waiting times, non-availability of beds etc.

The report stated 1,976 patients were contacted by teams deputed by the SMU to get their feedback against 11 listed complaints. Of them, 209 patients reported that the allied staff of the teaching hospitals behaved rudely with them, 155 complained of long wait for surgeries, tests and other treatment processes while 75 patients said they were charged for lab tests.

Similarly, the SMU also got many complaints of unavailability of beds, rude behaviour of security guards, denial of admissions, bribes by relevant staff, dysfunctional equipment, etc.

The report also pointed out that the hospitals put in the admission record 3,576 wrong mobile phone/contact numbers of the patients/attendants, causing inconvenience to the SMU to contact them to get feedback.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2026