Under Punjab Chief Minister "Sehatmand Punjab programme' was launched to extend maximum healthcare facilities to masses free of cost, the Lahore General Hospital (LGH) offered treatment to about 641 patients in its emergency and outdoor department and offered them free medicines worth Rs 50 million during 2006-07.
PGMI principal Professor Dr Sajjad Hussain told newsmen, here on Tuesday that the LGH provided operation material, medicines, CT Scan and other diagnostic facilities to some 222,814 patients in the emergency department, where they were admitted even without admission fee.
In the outdoor department, over 418,000 patients were examined and most of them given medicines free of cost, he said, adding the hospital had registered record increase in patients owing to the availability of specialist doctors and better healthcare facilities.
He said the hospital also rescued patients from quacks by launching evening outdoor shift and free operations in labour room. He said the hospital was also offering dialysis facility round-the-clock. Some 5,000 patients received dialysis services during the last 12 months. During this period, the hospital doctors conducted 39,328 operations, 18,788 CT scans, 7,476 MRIs, 436,953 laboratory tests, 146,855 X-rays and 35,326 ultrasound tests.
He further said the hospital was also constructing more shades to facilitate patients' relatives and attendants. He said the LGH would be made such a patient-friendly institute that people would forget about treatment facilities at private hospitals. He further said the government had allocated a huge sum of money for up gradation plans in the hospital during current financial year.