PESHAWAR, Sept 2: Patients visiting the city’s hospitals where institution-based practice is in force are facing difficulties due to delaying tactics used by doctors and health workers, patients told Dawn on Monday.

“We came to the surgical OPD at 4pm but the surgeon came to at 7:30pm because he was busy attending another patient at a private medical centre,” said an enraged patient Mohammad Rafiq at the Lady Reading Hospital.

According to him, situation in hospitals is different from the private medical centres where patients are seen by doctors without any delay.

The government imposed a ban on the private practice of doctors on March 1. In its place, an institution-based practice scheme was introduced for the doctors to see patients at the public sector hospitals. However, after a passage of six months, the government has been unable to streamline the situation. Most of the doctors are doing both the IBP as well as running their private clinics at the cost of poor patients.

Another patient said he visited a surgeon at the Khyber Teaching Hospital for removing his gall stones. According to him, the surgeon told him he had to wait for four months if he wanted his operation to be carried out in the hospital. However, the surgeon said the same operation would be performed next day if carried out in the private medical centre for which the patient said he did not have the money.

The admissions to hospital wards through the IBP have also decreased because the ENT, orthopaedic and general surgeons avoid admitting patients and prefer to see and operate patients at the private medical facilities. This is done for obvious reasons because doing a kidney operation at the IBP allows a surgeon to earn Rs5,000, while at the private centre, the surgeon receives more than Rs10,000 for the same operation.

Most patients have to wait for long hours at the hospitals because except for a few all the doctors come late. Moreover, most doctors have acquired the services of ward orderlies to work at their private clinics. These orderlies send the patients to private medical centres where they are examined by the doctors who charge them Rs300.

According to the laid down rules, they should not do private practice along side the IBP.

“The IBP is proving troublesome for the patients because the government has failed to take action against the defiant doctors,” said Gul Wali Khan at the Hayatabad Medical Complex. The signboards displayed outside these hospitals read: “Specialist doctors would be available from 2pm to 8pm to facilitate patients”. But the ground realities depict another picture. The doctors come and go according to their own will.