PESHAWAR, June 2: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department has chalked out a plan to establish medical colleges in 13 more districts and boost the performance of district headquarters hospitals by improving patients’ care, officials say.

They said that the plan involved less monetary cost and it would get government’s approval without any delay. The first three districts to have medical colleges are Swabi, Charsadda and Mansehra where the district headquarters hospitals would be declared as teaching hospitals for the students.

“In this way, patients’ care and medical education will progress at the grassroots. We want to improve district hospitals because it would lessen burden on tertiary care hospitals,” they said.

The officials hoped that that formal work for establishment of the three medical colleges would begin after the budget.

The Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar received 5,000, 7,000 and 3,000 patients daily, respectively. About 80 per cent patients are brought to these hospitals from other districts who could have received good treatment at far lesser cost in their native district hospitals, the officials said.

Presently, the province is producing about 1,000 doctors from eight public sector medical colleges a year, they said and added that this number was inadequate to meet medical needs of the growing population. “We have to take long-term decisions to benefit patients,” they said.

For example, Khalifa Gul Nawaz Hospital, Bannu, received 2,000 patients per month at the outpatient department two years ago and the number had now gone up to 13,000 patients per month, they said.

Bacha Khan Medical Complex will serve as teaching facility for the college in Swabi, while in Charsadda the health department had got a building, which formerly housed the elementary college, they said.

The health department recently disapproved a plan under which Khan Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, was supposed to establish a medical college, as it was a technical subject and only the department had the expertise to do so. “The same plan would now be carried out by the health department,” the officials said.

They said that the plan sought to provide trained staff for basic medical sciences to these colleges because the doctors working in the respective district hospitals would work as teaching faculty of the newly-established medical colleges.

The outpatient departments in all the district hospitals have been showing an increase of 50 per cent per year and the only solution to cope with patients burden is to establish medical colleges in the districts.

“We have already got the desired infrastructure for the three medical colleges under the rules of Pakistan Medical and Dental Council,” they said.

Except Torghar, Chitral and Malaknd division, the remaining districts of the province would get medical colleges, they said and added that at present it was not possible to establish such colleges in Torghar and Chitral.

The long-term plan also says that the government would put in place three more medical universities with a view to providing necessary input to the medical colleges.

“Once the plan is implemented, it will bring a marked improvement in patients care in district headquarters hospitals,” they said.

They said that the patients instead of going to Peshawar would get tertiary level treatment in their native districts.