Doctors from Karachi’s five largest teaching hospitals are calling patients to their private clinics for treatments, but are charging them higher than normal hospitals do. No action has been taken by the Sindh Health Department to curb this practice.
According to reports, patients suffering from various diseases come to the five major hospitals of Karachi – Jinnah Hospital, Civil Hospital, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, National Institute of Cardiology and the National Institutes of Health for Children – for better treatment. Many of them come to the OPDs for checkups and most of them even get admitted.
But often, the doctors present in these hospitals tell patients to come to their private clinics for “better and economically-viable treatments”. This lures a lot of people and they end up discharging from these hospitals, hoping to get better treatment in lesser cost. However, what these people don’t know is that most of these doctors charge them extra for their services and the cost in terms of unnecessary blood and biochemical tests and medicines is an added issue.
Patients have started to complain to the Management of Public and Private Hospitals about this serious issue but the management has not been concerned about it.
Patients seeking for serious treatments are mostly targeted not only by the doctors but also the paramedical staff present in hospitals.
Medical equipment and tests such as hospital CT scan, MRI, angiography, angioplasty, surgery and other surgeries of different organs of the body is controlled by a “mafia” of hospital management. However, no action has been taken still.