PESHAWAR, July 13: Scores of paramedics and other employees of the city’s hospitals have complained of being left out from the institution-based practice (IBP), which was launched in March.

According to the laid down rules of the IBP, the government placed a ban on private practice of the doctors, paramedical staff and other employees of the official hospitals.

Thousands of the employees of these hospitals suffered blow because most of them worked either at the private clinics, hospitals or ran their own clinics and medical stores before the IBP. The ban on their working outside the hospitals, has landed them in difficult position.

Some of them were lucky enough to be employed in the IBP in hospitals where they worked as permanent employees in morning shifts while the others were rendered jobless because the government-owned hospitals have appointed the required staff in the IBP. The doctors say that they could not accommodate all the staffers of the hospitals in the IBP at this stage.

In some departments of the city’s hospitals, the doctors have asked the employees to perform duties in the IBP on rotation basis which benefited all of the staff of the same department. For instance, each operation theatre assistants at Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) perform duties for ten days a month which has facilitated all of the staffers.

But in many cases, the head of the department concerned has appointed their handpicked staffers who perform duties at the IBP on permanent basis  while the rest of the staffers have been  ignored altogether.

Some of the radiographers at x-ray department of the KTH have not been included in the IBP which has enraged them.

About 250 people including doctors, technicians, nurses and ward orderlies have been employed in the IBP in the KTH while the number of total staff exceeds the figure of 3,500. Similarly, only 130 staffers including doctors have been involved in the IBP in Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) out of the total staffers of 12,00. At the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), 158 doctors and support staff have been enrolled in the IBP out of the total staff of 3,000.

These figures evidently show that the number of those employed in the IBP is just tip of the ice-berg, given the actual strength of the employees in these hospitals.

Many paramedics, nurses and clerical staff told Dawn that dozens of doctors have been drawing handsome money in monthly share from the IBP. These doctors have devised the share distribution formulas themselves, they alleged. According to them, several doctors receive Rs 10,000 or more per month despite the fact they do nothing. Some of these doctors do not even visit the IBP but still took their share.

Some of the doctors told Dawn that they could not accommodate all the staff because it would drastically slash their shares from the IBP. The system, they argued was new and it would take time to be put on the track and run on sustainable basis.