RAWALPINDI: The Punjab government’s proposed plan to outsource diagnostic services in its hospitals has drawn resentment from young doctors.

There are reports that the provincial government is going to outsource the radiology and pathological departments. The private company would get additional funds from the government to run these hospital departments.

In this regard, a team of Turkish doctors visited all government hospitals across the province. Senior officials of the health department said they had compiled a report about missing facilities in the departments.

However, the association of young doctors said the objective of the visit of the Turkish health experts was to inspect profitable departments where foreign companies may invest.

The Young Doctors Association met on Friday in Lahore and decided to reject any form of privatisation of the hospitals as it would affect the healthcare services to the citizens.

Young Doctors Association says move will deprive citizens of free healthcare facilities in hospitals

YDA Punjab chairman Dr Haider Akhter told Dawn that the provincial government was planning to privatise the hospitals and had already handed over four new tehsil hospitals hospitals in Lahore to a private hospital.

“It is a form of privatisation. A team of health experts from Turkey arrived in Punjab and also visited Rawalpindi and showed an interest in getting the diagnostic services departments.”

He said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who has been running the sector as the health minister, failed to improve the facilities in the hospitals. “After failing to improve the services, the chief minister came up with the new plan to outsource the health facilities,” he said.

He wondered why instead of giving financial autonomy to each hospital the government was going to outsource the profitable departments.

“For about 10 years, the PML-N government failed to improve the healthcare services in the province. Patients are unable to get free medicines, diagnostic services and other facilities in the government hospitals while health professionals face problems such as long-hours duties and insufficient salaries,” he said.

He said the young doctors had decided to start a protest against the government for its plan.

He said senior professors were already running private clinics instead of paying attention on the patient care in the government run hospitals and the patients were being provided medical care only by young doctors.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2018