Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today said that private practice by government doctors is responsible for health care mess in Jammu and Kashmir hospitals.

President DAK Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a statement said that private practice by doctors is the root cause of mess in government hospitals and patients suffer the consequences.

 “Doctors for financial gain concentrate their attention and work effort on private practice at the expense of public hospitals. They use public hospitals as recruiting grounds for practice and orchestrate scenarios to generate business for their clinics”, Dr Nisar said.

According to the statement dual practice by doctors create a pervasive incentive for them to increase waiting times in government hospitals so that patients are forced to go to private hospitals.

“For gall bladder removal, patients are made to wait for more than a year. Patients are made to wait for months for simple tests like ultrasound and echocardiography”, He added.

“They (doctors) spend most of their time in private clinics and are not available for patients in government hospitals.

“At government hospital, a senior doctor operates a patient once a week and the same doctor operates every day a dozen of patients in private hospital”, He said.

Dr Nisar said that patients in government hospitals are left to the mercy of trainees who find it difficult to handle complicated cases.

“It is ironical that full-time government doctors are allowed to run private clinics”, He said.

Medical Council of India puts bar on private practice of doctors in all health institutions which not only are crucial life-saving assets but full time centres for medical education and research.

Even the courts have observed that the academic character of health institutions gets damaged and the profession of healthcare gets affected by dual practice of doctors.

Guest