PESHAWAR, Nov 28: Critically-ill patients continue to suffer in government hospitals because they are not examined by senior doctors who want them visit their clinics prior to admission to city hospitals.

“Most of senior consultants examine only those patients who they admit from their clinics, but those seriously-ill fail to get their attention because they don’t visit their clinics,” said a house officer in the 1,200-bed Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).

According to him, serious patients were admitted to different wards through the casualty department. But, once such patients land in the wards, they are not given proper attention. He said that one medical ward out of four in the hospital catered to the serious patients on a rotation basis for 24 hours.

He said the wards ran short of beds and the patients brought to the hospital in critical conditions are some time put on benches.

“Regular beds are allotted to relatively stable patients, because they have the clinics’ prescriptions with them which they get upon paying Rs500 consultancy fee,” the house officer said. This deprived other patients of their rights to having proper beds, investigation and treatment, he added.

A health worker said that consultants were required to examine each and every of 50 patients in a ward during a round in the morning. But, he said that professors, associate and assistant professors conducted separate rounds and examined only those patients who had with them prescription chits issued from their clinics. “Those patients who don’t have clinics’ prescriptions are only attended by medical officers and junior doctors,” he added.

One Amjad Khan said he brought his father in extremely bad condition, but none of the senior doctors at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) bothered to examine him despite the passage of two days. “Ultimately, he died,” said the grieving son.

A medical officer in the LRH said that the provincial health department had two years ago issued a notification, asking the consultants to shift seriously-ill patients to the government hospitals from their clinics without charging consultation fee from them, but the directives fell on deaf ears. The situation in the 600-bed Hayatabad Medical Complex is not different from the KTH and the LRH.

A medical officer in the HMC said that on an average 30 beds in every ward of 40 beds each were occupied by the patients having chits from consultants’ clinics. Critically-ill patients who get even wooden benches are considered lucky. “Thanks to medical officers and trainee medical officers and house officers who, with the help of nursing and paramedics’ staff, cater to the needs of serious patients,” he added.

The medical officer said that patients of firearm injuries, accidents and appendicitis were treated by junior doctors. Only a few consultants visited the government hospitals in afternoons and nights, he added.

Some of the patients on the advice of hospital staff visit one of the consultants’ clinics and undergo operations the next day, he said. This attitude of the consultants in orthopaedic, general surgery, paediatric, ENT, gynaecology, cardiology, plastic surgery and neuro-surgery wards of the city hospitals often caused complications to the patients, said a junior registrar in the LRH.