PESHAWAR, Aug 21: The NWFP Health Department has decided to allocate Rs170 million to provide free treatment to critically-ill patients at the public sector hospital, an official said.

"We have allocated Rs70 million to provide free treatment to the patients at the emergency departments of the teaching hospitals," the official said.

According to him, the government had allocated Rs60 million for the treatment of serious patients of the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH), Abbottabad-teaching hospitals of the province.

"The provision of free medicines by the government has greatly helped the critically-ill and injured people, who are given free medicines at the casualty departments of the teaching hospitals," the official said, and added that previously the relatives of the patients had to rush to the market to bring medicines.

"But, now the patients get free medicines for 24 hours and the patients get relief in time," said the official. He said that this year the amount for the teaching hospitals had been increased to Rs70 million for the teaching hospitals, which would be granted to the four teaching hospitals on the basis of the number of patients.

To put check on the misuse of the fund, he said, patients had been divided into three categories.

The critically-ill patients are designated 'red' and are given all drugs from the hospitals' casualty department.

Patients, who are marked 'yellow' would stay under observation at the hospitals' emergency departments for 24 hours during which they are given free medicines, while patients with minor problems are designated 'green' and are given free consultation services.

After the success of the programme and relief to the patients, the government had decided to expand the system to the district headquarters (DHQs) hospitals also, said the health minister.

He said that a working group had been tasked to conduct a need assessment survey at all the DHQs of the province. "For this year, Rs100 million would be allocated to the DHQs hospitals to provide free emergency treatment of the patients.

The working group would complete its task of need assessment at the DHQs level and later the amount would be released to them on the basis of the report of the working group, he said.