PESHAWAR, April 10 The outdoor patients departments at the state-run hospitals are becoming useless as consultants do not examine patients there, say junior doctors, relatives of patients and health workers.

“The consultants are coming to outpatients departments (OPDs) to examine only those patients, who are referred to them by junior doctors,” said a trainee medical officer at one of the three teaching hospitals in the city.

Each of the teaching hospitals got the services of at least 60 specialist doctors, who were supposed to sit in the OPD from 9am to 2pm and examine patients there, he said.

According to him, majority of the specialist doctors don't visit the OPD and send their juniors. The patients, who visit the hospitals to be seen by the specialist doctors, face hardships in reaching them.

“We had been waiting in the surgical OPD since 9am but there was no specialist to see my mother, who suffers from severe abdominal pain,” said Rafiq Shah of Charsadda district. A tailor master by profession, Mr Shah said that he had been advised by a ward orderly in the OPD to contact a senior surgeon in his clinic and only then think about the treatment of his mother.

In August 2005, the provincial government had taken notice of the absence of the specialists from the OPD and they had been instructed to remain present and examine patients, but the directives didn't find receptive ears and the professors, associate professors and assistant professors (consultants) have been avoiding the OPDs without any fear.

A medical officer at one of the teaching hospital said that the professor of a medical ward never came to the OPD. “Not only this, but the same professor doesn't see hospitalised patients in the ward. He sees only the VIP patients in the ward,” he said, adding that the attitude of the consultants had converted the OPDs into post offices.

He said that junior doctors of the respective wards sat in the OPD and referred only those patients, who had clinic chits of the consultants, to the ward for admission. “Even the chief executives of the three hospitals -- Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex -- cannot inquire from the consultants about their absence,” sources added.

“Once a chief executive asked a professor about his absence from the OPD, and the latter told him why he should be sitting in OPD and what this hospital has given him,” said a medical officer. He said that the absence of consultants created many problems for the junior doctors as well as the patients.

“Sometime we feel that patients need admission in wards but we cannot admit them without the consent of the consultants,” he said, adding that the consultants had divided the wards' beds among themselves with most of 50 beds in each ward going to professor followed by associate and assistant professors.

“They admit patients on their own bed but the patients must visit the consultants' clinics first,” he added.

About 6,000 patients visit the OPD but almost half of them return home without being examined by consultants.