PESHAWAR, Aug 11: Consultants are fleecing patients by sending them to private laboratories and ultrasound centres, patients and health workers complain.
"Patients visiting private clinics of consultants are advised a number of investigations from designated laboratories allegedly for commission", a health worker at the Dabgari Gardens claimed.
He said the charges of an ultrasound examination were Rs300, of which Rs100 allegedly went to doctors. Patients accuse doctors of advising unnecessary investigations for the commission.
A doctor said that several consultants had established laboratories, where they sent their patients. Several physicians, surgeons and gynaecologists themselves conduct ultrasound tests and charge the patients.
Health workers allege that most of the laboratories offer commission to doctors. A patient complained that he was asked by a doctor to get his tests conducted twice from different laboratories.
Some doctors even sent patients from wards to laboratories outside hospitals although the facilities were available there, a technician claimed. A doctor said that the charge for the ECG was Rs15 in government hospitals, while private clinics charged Rs150.
A chest X-ray costs Rs35 in government hospitals but private laboratories charge Rs100," he said. "The physician who sends a patient for the ECG gets Rs80 as commission," he alleged.
He said most of the technicians in private laboratories were unqualified and untrained and the results of tests conducted by them were unreliable. "The orderlies of the doctors visit the laboratories in the evening and collect their commission," a technician said.
He said most of the doctors advised tests to patients on the letter heads of designated laboratories. "A physician who runs a thriving clinic receives at an average Rs30,000 from a big laboratory by referring three to five tests to every patient," a pathologist said.
The most costly test for the patients is the CT scan, which costs Rs1,400 in government hospitals and Rs2,500 to Rs4,000 in private centres. A health secretariat official said the health regulatory authority, established recently, would start taking action against medical professionals involved in violation of laws.