PESHAWAR, Feb 14: In the wake of provincial government’s decision to ban private practice on serving doctors, most of the senior consultants fear a decline in their income because the government hospitals played a big role in the establishment of their private clinics, doctors told Dawn.
“Owing to high expenses, we cannot survive with our small salaries. Most of the doctors are dependent on their private practices to pay for the education, health and other expenses of their family members,” an assistant professor at one of the city’s hospitals said.
He said it was a bad situation, more so because “we do not have any representative body or association” to press the government to rescind its decision. But, still, he said, they were hopeful of presenting their point of view to the government in one way or the other.
Another doctor revealed that some seniormost consultants, who were nearing retirement age, would opt for premature retirement if the government did not show any flexibility regarding the ban on private practice because their clinics are well established.
It may be mentioned here that some of the general, ENT surgeons, ophthalmologists, orthopedicians and pathologists who have been earning more than Rs100,000 on daily basis, would ponder resignations in case the government stuck to its stance.
On the contrary, other specialists like physicians, cardiologists, dermatologists, nephrologists, etc, who do not fall in surgeons’ category and are, therefore, unable to earn more money, would not risk losing their government job, come what may.
The decision to ban them from private practice has been receiving appreciation from the general public because they want the doctors to provide treatment to the patients in government-run hospitals, which cost them less money than the private ones.
The doctors, however, argue that they weren’t consulted before this decision was taken. But the officials at health department say they had invited the doctors on several occasions to seek their suggestions regarding the modus operandi of the new system but they didn’t take any interest and the government took the decision in the larger public interest.
Last year, the government started institutional-based private practice (IPP) in four teaching hospitals of the province that failed miserably due to the reluctance of the senior doctors because under that scheme they were entitled to get sixty per cent of the consultation fee collected from the patients while at their private clinic they were getting hundred per cent, besides their commission they received from the privately-run pathological laboratories, x-ray, ultrasound and other investigative outlets.
It can be gauged from the fact that only 702 patients were examined in the three teaching hospitals — Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex — since the start of IPP in May last year.
On the contrary, at there are about fifty consultants who entertain a hundred patients each at their private clinics on daily basis.
Similarly, only 15 patients have been operated upon so far in these hospitals while about 400 patients get operated a day in private hospitals in Peshawar.