The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Sindh, has chalked out a plan to take action on complaints lodged by patients against the paramedical and clerical staffs of public and private hospitals across the province. This was revealed by a NAB official while talking to Business Recorder here on Thursday.
He said the NAB had sent recommendations to its central secretariat in Islamabad for installing complaint boxes in every hospital in the province to check malpractice in the institutions and provide relief to patients.
He expressed the hope that the recommendations would be approved shortly, adding that the Sindh NAB had been assigned a task to take anti-corruption measures through smooth process in primary health sector, besides facilitating tuberculosis patients.
He maintained that the NAB's central secretariat was seriously considering solving the problems of patients, who suffered a lot due to the malpractice in the hospitals. He also pointed out that the authorities had issued directives to all regional offices of the NAB to streamline the performances of every health-related department.
According to the NAB's notice, Rawalpindi office has been assigned drugs registration and procurement job, while Punjab office looked after the hospital management and patient interface, Peshawar office would tackle maternal and child health programme and Balochistan office would procure medicine and medical equipment.
He said that the NAB's campaign against public and private hospitals' management was determined to eliminate corruption culture in the health sector. He added that the NAB had received complaints of counterfeit and officially banned medicines, which were still being marketed in bulk quantity to compel the patients to buy them on the recommendations of corrupt doctors, allegedly got commission from pharmaceutical companies.
He said the government had started healthcare programme in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WTO) to eradicate the lethal tuberculosis (TB) disease in Pakistan.
He admitted that staff of the some public sector hospitals were selling inexpensive medicines on high rates, and added the NAB would start campaign against such doctors who were using equipment, allocated for the government hospitals, in their own hospitals. According to Transparency International Pakistan's report, corruption is on the rise in the country's health sector.