Rohtak: Govt labs shut in evening, PGI patients pay through nose

Sunit Dhawan

Rohtak, June 11

Certain private diagnostic laboratories are making money by taking advantage of the lack of coordination among different departments of the Rohtak PGIMS.

The patients who are admitted to the indoor wards of the PGIMS and supposed to be operated upon, have to undergo pre-anaesthetic check-up (PAC) prior to their surgeries.

As per sources, the PAC is usually done on the previous evening of the day on which the surgery has been scheduled. Some diagnostic tests are advised by the doctors conducting the PAC.

“However, by the time the tests are advised, the PGIMS labs have been closed for the day. Hence, the patients have to get these tests done by private labs,” says a source.

Another source further said agents and technicians of these labs visit the wards of the institute round the clock without any check by the PGIMS administration. It is not that the PGIMS administration or other authorities concerned are not aware of what is going on at the institute.

In fact, the authorities of Pt Bhagwat Dayal Sharma University of Health Sciences (UHS), Rohtak, had recently called a meeting “to explore the possibilities to prevent testing of indoor patients from outside for tests which are available at the hospital and for minimising the prescriptions by the faculty members for the medicines and other material to be brought from private vendors”.

The meeting, chaired by Prof (Dr) Anita Saxena, Vice-Chancellor, UHS, and attended by UHS Registrar, PGIMS Director, Medical Superintendent and the heads of the departments concerned, noted that the major reason behind the practice was that the said tests were prescribed by the doctors conducting the PACs on the evening before the surgery and these tests were not done at the institute labs beyond the routine working hours.

The meeting, the minutes of which were circulated on June 7, decided that the faculty members of the Department of Anaesthesia, who carried out the PACs, would be directed to get the PACs done in the morning hours so that the tests could be done at the institute labs. It was also decided to get the timings of the hospital labs extended up to 9 pm.

At the meeting it was further decided that all consultants would be directed through their respective HoDs to ensure that the required drugs and material were used from the hospital supply.

“It is their responsibility to send demand for the required material and drugs to the section concerned well in time,” the minutes of the meeting said.

Timing a concern

• The patients who are admitted to the indoor wards of the PGIMS and supposed to be operated upon, have to undergo pre-anaesthetic check-up (PAC) prior to their surgeries
• As per sources, the PAC is usually done on the previous evening of the day on which the surgery has been scheduled
• “However, by the time the tests are advised, the PGIMS labs are closed for the day. Hence, the patients have to get these tests done by private labs
• At a recent meeting of hospital authorities, it was decided that the timings of the hospital labs be extended to 9 pm