Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Peshawar has introduced a new policy to put an end to those patients, whose cases were under trial with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), or the Ihtesab Commission.

Professor Dr Mukhtiar Zaman, Medical Director of LRH, told Daily Times that earlier some officials and members of the provincial assembly had managed to get admitted at the Bolton Block of the hospital but now the hospital had initiated a policy to put an end to the practice.

“Under the new policy all those patients who are being investigated by NAB would now only get the treatment facility at the hospital but not be allowed to be get admitted,” the official asserted.

He informed that all those patients would be admitted to the Police Hospital or anywhere else but not LRH. “The hospital took the decision in the best interest of the patients’ care and the hospital,” he explained.

Dr. Mukhtiar Zaman said that Lady Reading Hospital was established in 1929 on 29 acres of land with a 1,800-bed capacity for the patients.

He added that in 2015 there were 2.3 million people who visited the Out Patient Department (OPD), while 142,000 patients were admitted and 35,000 surgeries were performed, at the operation theatres of the hospital. Going by the statistics, the official maintained, every hour at least 400 patients visited LRH.

Referring to the policy of ban on patients under a NAB trial, Dr. Mukhtiar Zaman said that the stay of such patients at the hospital added to the problems of the management. “LRH is the mostly visited hospital and common patients faced difficulties if high profile patients stay at the hospital with their army of servants,” he said. Dr Mukhtiar added that LRH had also introduced “one patient one attendant” policy to cut down the unnecessary crowd. He added that normally one patient was accompanied by five to seven attendants which seriously affected the performance of the staff as well as creating hygiene problems.

He added that the medicine purchase committee of LRH had also been recommended to buy all those medicines for patients in the hospital which were needed by the patients on an emergency basis. He claimed that soon the patients would be provided 80 per cent medicines from the hospital. Similarly, a pharmacy would also be established soon at the hospital where patients would be able to buy medicines on discount, as compared to the open market.

He shrugged off the reports that the entry fee at the emergency of LRH had increased. He clarified that the entry fee was Rs.10 for every patient at the emergency department of LRH adding that those patients referred by the doctors for admission to the medical wards, would pay Rs.120, while Rs.220 would be paid at surgical wards.

He said that the provincial government was serious about making LRH a model medical care facility. He added that steps were being taken to improve the facilities at LRH but change would take time.

In reply to a question raised by MPA Nighat Aurkazai at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly the other day, that ventilators were not available at the hospital, Mukhtiar Zaman said that a new nursery ward for infants at LRH had been established where high-tech machines including ventilators were available.