Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Tall claims of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government about “Naya KP” have proved hollow slogans as mismanagement of the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) has become a source of nuisance for patients and their attendants.

During a visit to LRH, this correspondent witnessed queues of patients and their attendants while there were just two junior female doctors checking them.

A patient, Naeem, said he was wandering here and there in the LRH for three hours and still he was stuck in the hospital for final prescription of the doctor.

“At first, I got a registration chit and I was asked to approach Room No 15 for my daughter’s checkup. After waiting for 30-minutse in a long queue, my daughter was examined by the doctor, who then referred us to Room No 11 where an injection was administered to my baby. But there again, I was sent to Room No 15 for final prescription now I am waiting for my turn and it will take another hour,” Naeem said.

Another patient, Abdullah, wandering in the hospital in search of “Room No 54” said that he himself had a chest infection. When he could not find the room, he was asked by an orderly to approach Room No 84.

“It is a deliberate plan to torture the public. When I am going to be examined in Room No 84, why they have written “Room No 54″ in my registration chit?” he questioned while cursing the LRH administration and provincial government.

This scribe also visited the hospital, where it was found that the doctors were checking all the patients in a single room, ie Room No 84, while the staff was wrongly mentioning other different room numbers to confuse the public.

When this correspondent asked a staffer of the LRH about the state of affairs, he said on the condition of anonymity that, “Earlier they claimed to make ‘naya Pakistan and naya Khyber Pakhtunkjhwa’, but now they have made a ‘naya LRH’.”

This scribe entered a room in emergency to get a child examined for fever but a junior lady doctor refused to examine her and instead advised to take the child to Room No 11. However, the staff at the Room No 11 said the child is to be first examined by doctor in Room No 15. But it was not possible to reach the doctor at Room No 15, where there was a huge queue, amid scuffles of patients and orderlies of the hospital.

A doctor, who serves at a hospital and also has a private clinic, told this scribe on condition of anonymity that the Provincial Government unnecessarily interfered in affairs of the hospitals in Peshawar.

“The government should have worked and reformed hospitals in other districts, instead of interfering and spoiling affairs of LRH and other hospitals in the provincial capital,” he added. He also said that the heads of the hospitals were mostly installed by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

However, he admitted that the KP Government had taken some positive measures for doctors. “It is unfortunate that the affairs of LRH are in poor condition, although the government has increased professional allowance of doctors. The allowance of doctors in Peshawar has been increased from Rs 10,000 to Rs 42,000,” he said.

When contacted, Jamil Shah from the LRH’s media and protocol section said that there was huge rush of patients, that is why there were problems. He also said that previously there were separate counters but now the rush has increased as they are issuing registration chits for both casualty and OPD from same counters.

When asked about mismanagement in registration counter, he said that “Unfortunately the software of the registration counter is out of order, that is why patients are being referred to wrong room numbers.”