PESHAWAR, April 11: The NWFP doctors have expressed concern over the attitude of the government towards the issue of banning their private practice outside government-run hospitals and have asked for a negotiated solution to the problem.

“If the government fails to solve the issue through dialogue by the end of April, we would be forced to submit our resignations to the Health Department for which the responsibility would rest with the government,” warned Dr Umar Ayub, Chairman, Joint Action Committee, while speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday.

“Our offer of dialogue with the government shouldn’t be considered our weakness but we want to save the institutions, patients and doctors from being affected because of this lingering problem,” he said.

Flanked by more than a dozen senior consultants, Dr Umar Ayub deplored that whenever an experiment was to be undertaken province was used as a laboratory. This time, he said a ban on private practice of the doctors had been imposed here.

The government, he alleged, had started the institutional-based practice (IBP) without any homework and upgradation of facilities at the state-run hospitals.

Dr Umar said there was no hope that the new scheme would succeed. The main objective of the government was to earn money at the hospitals, he said and asked why the consultants were being prevented from doing private practice outside the public sector hospitals.

“The government banned the private practice on the plea that corruption had been rampant there but now the same corruption had been legalised in public hospitals,” he remarked.

He also referred to the mushroom growth of clinics run by unqualified Afghan doctors and said patients had started visiting these clinics because of the rush at the government hospitals in the morning hours.

Women were the worst sufferers because people did not want to get their female family members examined in hospitals due to rush and wanted privacy which was available only in private clinics.

Many women, he said, died of curable diseases for lack of lady doctors. In this way, sizable number of female patients were being seen by unqualified people which multiplied their problems.

The JAC chairman said the government was unable to increase budget allocation to improve the health facilities and blamed doctors for its failure instead.

According to him, only Rs0.9 million had been allocated for laboratory budget to Hayatabad Medical Complex wherein the demand was for Rs20million. The government was under pressure from the IMF and the World Bank and budget for health sector was being slashed every year, he said, adding the doctors had been giving various suggestions to the government from time to time to introduce much-needed reforms in health sector and generate revenue but all of them went down the drain.

The uncompromising attitude of the government would also deprive several doctors to get specialised training in government hospitals because in such circumstances consultants would not be able to impart training to junior doctors and the system would collapse.