Conflict of interest in Punjab’s Healthcare System

Lahore is the capital of the province Punjab which the management claims is the best in providing healthcare facilities. This claim is almost correct as soon as we see the actual ground situation of major hospitals in Lahore but the conflict of interest between doctors and patients hinders in the way of providing full medical care to every patient claimed by the government.

Currently, there are total 23 public hospitals in Lahore that are fully functional but still we report almost daily on not providing adequate healthcare facilities to the patients despite the government’s huge injected funds and availability of medical facilities more than the needs. But despite all these patients are crying and are compelled to go to private hospitals for treatment; so where is the gap?

Doctors are the actual problem in this scenario who are allowed for private practice despite having government jobs and high salaries. It is open everywhere in all the big public hospitals of Lahore the majority of doctors either not present for the checkup or they go before their duty time we have found that they are giving proper time to their private clinics and hospitals because they are paid higher than government salaries and also most of them consider private practice as a business and they are running them as a private business. Patients are either referred to their private clinics and hospitals or they decide on a private medical treatment when they find bad administration and doctors unavailability in public hospitals.

As a beat reporter, I can recall my news report of Lahore’s largest public hospital: Services Hospital and PIC adjacent to it. I reported a few months ago that there is no ventilator in these hospitals and besides there is a completely private hospital that is only providing the ventilators and is still openly doing that. I also reported the same hospital for deliberately keeping the MRI machine out of order and the director of the Radiology Department was referring the patients to her private medical lab nearest to the hospital. She didn’t write to the government for the new part of the MRI machine to benefit her laboratory.

However, the stories don’t end here; as a beat reporter whenever I go to the hospitals I encounter patients who when see a media person approach me and open their hearts for what they are suffering because of doctors’ personal and business interests creating conflict with patients’ interests. Recently, during coverage at Jinnah Hospital Lahore, parents of a toddler came to me and complained to me that the doctor was insisting on shifting their child suffering from brain injury to a private hospital because of an acute medical condition that can only be provided to that hospital while I knew that doctor is wrong and misguiding the parents for his business interests because all medical facilities were available in Jinnah Hospital related to that injury.

These are some examples that I referred to above but this conflict of interest happens daily in every public hospital in Lahore that anyone can see openly.

That’s the doctors-patient conflict in which doctors’ concern is money while patients’ concern is free or low-cost medical treatment which is the ultimate responsibility of the government.

Here the question arises where is the Punjab Healthcare Commission in this conflict of interest?

PHCC takes action on these issues but unfortunately, there are corrupt elements everywhere so PHCC’s higher officials also have investments in private medical treatment systems as well as the Punjab Health Department officials even the Health Minister of Punjab has its private medical hospital, and medicine company. So when those officials who take action are involved in this conflict of interest the system remains what it is right now.

The solution is to immediately refrain from doctors in public hospitals for private practice; secondly, there should be a task force in every public and private hospital to keep an eye on doctors not referring patients to private labs or medical centers and can’t practice in private clinics. Most importantly, there should be a complaint desk and phone number where patients can complain about these issues, and immediate action should be taken against those culprits.