RAWALPINDI, July 29: Patients at the Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH) are suffering at the hands of unscrupulous doctors and paramedics, who force them to get their pathological investigations done from private laboratories.

The hospital laboratory is not able to perform the simplest tests. The recent admission of District Nazim Raja Tariq Kiani to the hospital highlighted this problem, as all of his tests were performed at a private laboratory.

Some people claim that the recently appointed board of governors (BoG) of autonomous hospitals has taken notice of this state of affairs in the RGH.

Sources in the pathology department of the hospital revealed that certain doctors and paramedics working at private laboratories and in some cases owning them did not allow improvement in the state of affairs of the laboratory as this would hurt their interests.

Two of the doctors work at private laboratories, another has a share in a private laboratory, while two others own labs themselves. The entire paramedical staff works part time in private laboratories and during their official duty they safeguard the interests of their part-time masters.

This business of harrying the patients does not begin at the RGH’s laboratory rather it starts from the wards where the consultants concerned have affiliation with outside laboratories and directly refer the patients to those specific laboratories.

Patients say the consultants do not accept results of any laboratory other than to which they had been referred to and the doctors instead feel annoyed and humiliate them for not obeying the “orders”.

The chemical laboratory analyser remained out of order for several months and its repair was intentionally delayed to benefit the private laboratories. Similarly, the hematology analyser is closed after 1:30pm and all the tests required in the evening are referred to outside private labs.

The laboratory staff give lengthy dates for reports, the patients complained. Histopathology and bone marrow reports that are delivered by private laboratories in a few days are returned to the patients at the RGH lab after comparatively very lengthy periods.

Moreover, the hepatitis tests that are mandatory for surgery and gynaecology cases are not being performed at the RGH lab.

The doctors are paid 20 to 30 per cent as commission for referring patients to the private laboratories, while the paramedics also earn a handsome share.