KARACHI, Sept 29: Doctors at the SESSI dispensaries and hospitals were found overburdened with number of patients.

When asked, some doctors said that for more than hundred patients only one doctor was available.

They admitted that they tried to examine maximum patients in the shortest possible time and as such patients could not be given proper treatment.

They stressed that the number of doctors ought to be increased in the dispensaries at least in accordance with the ratio of patients.

“Had the SESSI applied the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council rules, a doctor would have to examine 50 patients and there would have been no unrest among the doctors,” they argued.

The doctors said that the dispensaries had very limited facilities where they could treat only the patients suffering from seasonal diseases or minor injuries while those having some chronic diseases or severe injuries were referred to the K.V. Social Security Hospital for further treatment.

A doctor said that some patients pressurized doctors to get referred to private hospitals or prescribe costly medicines.

In this situation, they felt quite insecure, he said, and suggested that there should be security arrangements in all the health centers, so that the doctors could perform their duties with full concentration and in a peaceful atmosphere.

Commenting on the allegations being leveled against them by the patients about provision of insufficient or substandard medicines, the doctors admitted that they were providing locally manufactured medicines to patients.

However, they said that they were not authorized to purchase the costly medicines at the dispensary level and were bound to provide only the medicines that were being supplied through the SESSI’s head office.

They said that they had nothing to do with the quality or quantity, but had to follow the policy and whatever was ordered by their high-ups.

When the medical adviser of SESSI Dr Mohammad Akram was approached in this regard, he said that 99 per cent medicines were now locally manufactured even that of the multinational companies, advocating that the medicines being provided by the SESSI were of the best quality.

He said that some people tried to get prescribed costly medicines in order to sell them out in the market, even despite having a seal of SESSI on the bottles.

The labourers were getting their undeserved relatives treated in the garb of parents or children, which he said, was unfair and sheer violation of the SESSI’s rules. He further said that the patients were being treated without any discrimination.

To a question, he said that the labourers had three representatives in the SESSI’s governing body who enjoyed the right to raise questions.

About the shortage of doctors in some of the dispensaries, the adviser said that the problems would be solved shortly.