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| Staff engineering snags in hospital equipment to benefit lab owners | | Doctors - clinical labs nexus duping patients | | ET Report
srinagar, Jan 25: Much to the misery of patients, an unbridled nexus between doctors and private diagnostic laboratory owners is thriving in the Valley, with doctors endorsing reports only from the laboratories and diagnostic centers of their choice.
Despite expenditures of crores of rupees on procurement and operation of diagnostic equipment in Government run hospitals, doctors - both from public and private sector hospitals/clinics - instruct patients to get various tests done 'only' at the centers prescribed by them, allegedly to earn commission on each patient referred by them to the designated labs and diagnostic centres.
Despite tall claims of the Government over providing free diagnostic services to pregnant women in the State, a group of patients at the Lal Ded Hospital here alleged that doctors at the hospital are forcing them to get the tests conducted at private labs outside the hospital. They also accused the doctors of forcing them to visit them at their respective private clinics instead of the hospital.
One of the patients said the doctors recommend unnecessary tests and force them to get the tests done at a particular private lab. "The doctor asked me to get an ultrasonography done on my wife from a diagnostic centre near Iqbal Park. When I asked her why the test could not be done within the hospital, she told me that she does not rely on the results of tests done in the hospital", said Zaffar Ahmad of Sopore whose wife had visited a doctor at the Lal Ded Hospital.
"My relative in the city owns a lab and I could have got the tests done free of cost but the doctor asked me to get the tests done at particular lab outside the hospital", said Shugufta W/o Shabir Ahmad of Pulwama.
All tests of indoor patients are done free of cost through JSSK Scheme under NRHM and doctors are not authorized to force a patient to get the test done at particular lab in private, said an official at the hospital. Utter lack of Government control on the rates being charged by these labs is further adding on to the dismay and anguish of the patients as different labs are charging varied rates for different tests.
"There are some black sheep in the doctor community who spread such rumours for benefitting the private diagnostic centres and earning commissions for themselves. Even the diagnostic centre owners have a hand in spreading such rumours", said a senior doctor here on conditions of anonymity. He admitted that some doctors and technicians were intentionally delaying diagnostic tests like USGs, CT scans, MRIs etc to compel the patients to avail the facilities from the private sector outside the hospitals. The patients have appealed the Government to intervene in the matter and save poor people from being fleeced through the nexus, on one pretext or the other. |
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