HYDERABAD, Sept 11: Sindh Minister for Auqaf, Zakat, Ushr, Minority and Religious Affairs Dr Irfan Gul Magsi has said that the Sindh government is considering making legislation against the private practice of doctors and professors who are serving in government-run tertiary hospitals.

He said this while speaking at a press conference in the committee room of the Civil Hospital, Hyderabad, after visiting it on Thursday.

He reiterated that the Sindh chief minister, the health adviser and he, himself, had decided not to hand over the control of the Civil Hospital Hyderabad to the federal government through the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences.

Dr Magsi pointed out that the government was seriously considering whether the private practice of doctors and professors, serving in the government’s tertiary hospital, should be banned through the legislation in the Sindh Assembly.

He said that, he, being a student of the Agha Khan University, had witnessed that doctors serving there did not have their private practice.

He admitted that it was a big and common problem of every tertiary hospital that professors often remained absent from their wards as they were busy in their private practice.

He said that efforts were being made to curb such practice.

He said that it was the prime target of the government to provide quality education as well as health facilities to poor people who turned up at government hospitals in Sindh, and added that the Sindh chief minister had recently given 20 ambulances while provision of an air ambulance service was in the offing as its summary had been moved.

He further said that his department in collaboration with the health department was working on a project to provide education on Basic Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation, where people/doctors would be trained how to tackle patients in emergency cases.

He disclosed that if doctors were imparted this technical education, casualty could be contained by 70 per cent and this important aspect must be included in the syllabi of schools/colleges.

He said that dialysis units would also be established in government hospitals.

He maintained that it was only Sindh province which had got 30 per cent increase in Zakat funds from the central government and the district Zakat Committee would also be directed to release Rs1 million for the the Civil Hospital Hyderabad.

Stressing the need for community participation, the minister said that Zakat counters would be set up in hospitals as well and that only deserving people would be getting Zakat.

He vowed not to politicize Zakat and added that purchase committees would be reconstituted in the hospitals.

He said that recently four senior officials of his department had been placed under suspension and that people would see a change in the performance of 60,000 Zakat officials.

Referring to reports, suggesting handing over of the Civil Hospital Hyderabad to the federal government through LUMHS, he clarified that the Civil Hospital Hyderabad would remain with the provincial government to provide facilities to patients on subsidized rates.

About the conversion of intensive care unit into the coronary care unit in the Civil Hospital Hyderabad, he said that the city needed a coronary care unit but it did not mean that the people did not need an intensive care unit here.

He said that once the coronary care unit was ready then cardiac surgeons, who were serving in other cities would return to Hyderabad.

Speaking on the occasion, the vice chancellor of LUMHS, Prof Jan Mohammad Memon, made it clear that the Civil Hospital was not being handed over to the federal government.

The MS demanded Rs10 million from Zakat fund for the Civil Hospital Hyderabad for the welfare of poor patients.