PESHAWAR: The poor patients will receive free healthcare services in the morning and those paying for the services will be seen in afternoon by the doctors under the institution-based practice (IBP), to be launched in consonance with Medical Teaching Institution Reforms Law, 2015 at the four teaching hospitals of the province from mid-September.

The IBP had earlier been planned from August 1 but it was deferred due to summer vocation of the consultants and improvement of infrastructure and homework, sources said.

“The IBP will different from the one started in teaching hospitals in 2002. The private and poor patients will be kept separate time-wise and bed-wise,” sources said.

In the 10-member board’s meeting held on Saturday, it was decided that private patients would be examined in IBP after 5pm while the poor would get facilities in the morning shift at Lady Reading Hospital, the province’s biggest hospital.

PTI chief Imran Khan, whose party rules the province, is pushing hard the new system at the four teaching hospitals. His cousin Dr Nowsherwan Burki, the architect of the new system in LRH, Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad, shuttles between the US and Pakistan to make things happen.

Poor patients will get free health service in the morning while private patients will be seen by doctors in afternoon

“Dr Burki is showing more flexibility to convince the doctors and other staff to stop opposition to the new system,” sources said. The same would be applicable to other hospitals, too, they added.

The members of Board of Governors, including former secretary health Saleem Khan Jhagra, Dr Abdul Bari, head of the Indus Foundation, and others said that the move was aimed at mixing private and public patients, time-wise and bed-wise. It would result in poor patients being coerced into registering as private or would suffer from endless waiting lists, as had happened in the past, they added.

Sources said that the proposed system had also failed in cardiovascular department of LRH presently owing to long waiting lists extending to 2017.

The same patient, registering in IBP, avails fast-tracked services and gets operated within days. Private patients would hamper the treatment of poor as they would be dealt with separately, according to sources.

The IBP launched in the province some 17 years ago, backfired because of mixing paying and non-paying patients that led to ill-treatment of the non-paying ones. “This time, the BoG is implementing IBP in a way that rich patients don’t infringe upon the rights of the poor people,” sources said.

“The BoG of LRH is getting Rs806 million to upgrade facilities, purchase equipment, provide furniture and improve infrastructure at the hospital,” they said.

Earlier, the BoG of LRH, headed by Dr Burki, had decided that consultants would see the paying and free patients throughout working hours but following arguments by the members, it was decided that doctors would examine poor patients in the morning shift from 9am to 4pm while those, who could pay, would be seen by consultants in the second shift.

The private patients will be kept separate from public patients and staff and doctors would get enhanced salaries. A professor, who receives Rs125,000 currently, will get Rs350,000, an associate professor will get Rs300,000, assistant professor Rs250,000 and senior registrar will get Rs20,000 if they opt for IBP. They will be required to give up their private practice.

The architect of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Hospital, Lahore and under-construction SKMCH& RC Peshawar, is under tremendous pressure from Imran Khan to make things happen. He wants the system to benefit the patients by giving incentives to the staff and start the system as soon as possible.

Contrary to the present system, under which consultants control beds in a ward, a bed management system will be adopted wherein consultants will have no authority.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2015

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