PESHAWAR, Nov 3: The provincial cabinet decision to abolish the share of doctors and paramedical staff in the user charges at the public sector hospitals is likely to have an adverse affect on the performance of the hospitals.
The pathologists, radiologists and technicians, who had been getting share in the user charges at the government-owned hospitals, have been badly hit by the decision of the provincial cabinet on Oct 1, a radiologist said.
A technician said that the directives have started affecting the performance of the hospital employees.
He said that about 150 ultrasound tests were conducted on daily basis, but after the directives the number fell to 50-80, as the share of the radiologists had been abolished and at present they avoid doing more cases.
An ECG technician said that it was an incentive for the employees to encourage them and serve for long hours. The low- paid employees, he said were hardly getting Rs300 per month as their share from the user charges, the abolition of which would affect their performance.
He said that the technicians would resort to charge the patients for any test, but won’t give the receipts to them. So all the money would go into the pockets of the technicians and the national kitty would get nothing.
In Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), the radiologists, cardiologists and technicians are the main losers. In HMC, the monthly share of the radiologists from the user charges was above Rs80,000, whereas the radiographers also received at least Rs5,000.
This is because of the MRI and CT Scan tests which are very expensive and every patient is required to pay, a doctor said.
Officials at the health department argue that fee for a single MRI scan is Rs4,000, 40 per cent of which (Rs1,500) goes to the pockets of the radiologists, despite the fact that the employee is paid by the government and the machine is purchased with the public money.
The officials say that millions of rupees are being collected from the patients under the head of user charges from the patients. Forty per cent of the money goes to the consultant and the employees, whereas the rest goes to the national kitty, with radiology and pathology departments taking the lead.
Expensive machines, such as MRI, CT scan or Engiography are purchased by the government, and should be operated by the consultants. But the procedures are carried out by low-paid technicians.
The user charges kept on rising, and so did the share of the doctors. The government a few years back started receiving Rs100 as operation theatre charges from the patients, which at present was Rs300. Similarly, the cost of ECG test, had gone up by 50 per cent in the past few months.
The officials of the health department said that the hospital employees, including consultants and technicians were not entitled to receive the share, because like surgeons and physicians, they should work without getting the share from the user charges.
KILLED: Unidentified gunmen on Monday killed a lady school teacher and two others in Charsadda district.
According to police officials, Gulnaz, the wife of Abid Jan, was going back to her home after leaving the school in Charsadda along with her brother-in-law in a private Suzuki pick-up. When their vehicle reached on Nemoray Baba Road some unidentified gunmen opened indiscriminate fire on the vehicle, they added.
The lady school teacher, her brother-in-law, Shariq and the pick-up driver, Mohammad Wisal, died on the spot.
The victims’ family told the police that they did not have any enmity with anyone in the area. But an official in the Tarnao police station said that the family knew about the murderers.