Govt hospitals asked not to charge any fee from poor patients

By Our Staff Reporter

Karachi: Sindh Health Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar has directed heads of government hospitals not to charge any fee from poor patients and their treatment expenses should be met through patients’ welfare fund.

He gave these directives during his surprise visit to Civil Hospital Hyderabad where he was apprised that the hospita’ls employees were charging more than prescribed fee of Rs50 for an X-ray.

He instructed the hospital’s MS to take action against those harassing the poor patients by charging extra money on account of different medical tests. In this regard, the minister asked the people to lodge their complaints at his office Tel. Nos (021-99217347 & 02-199217346) from 9am to 9pm for the redressal of their grievances.

He said that Sindh government was spending billions of rupees in the health sector to provide relief to the people, especially the poor segment of the society, and as such no negligence or acts of corruption on the part of public sector hospitals’ employees would be tolerated.

Cautioning the government hospitals’ management that he would continue to carry out surprise inspections of hospitals, he urged medical superintendents of all public sector hospitals to create a friendly environment in hospitals to facilitate patients.