“Health Department in Kashmir recently took a strong note of the public complaints about touts of private diagnostic laboratories forcing patients to undergo investigations at private laboratories of their choice despite hassle free accessibility of patients to testing facilities at government hospitals.”
Treatment of patients without investigations at diagnostic laboratories is neither advisable nor practicable as doctors most of the times ask patients to undergo one or multiple investigations at the diagnostic laboratories before prescribing medicines or suggesting any surgical or non surgical interventions. Shockingly Health Department in Kashmir recently took a strong note of the public complaints about touts of private diagnostic laboratories forcing patients to undergo investigations at private laboratories of their choice despite hassle free accessibility of patients to testing facilities at government hospitals. While the allegations are galore that touts of some private diagnostic laboratories lure patients outside Government hospitals for undergoing tests at private diagnostic labs of their choice instead of laboratories established at the Government hospitals, Shockingly the doctors at the Government hospitals don’t take note of such complaints for the purposes of investigating the allegations of all sorts against the touts of private diagnostic laboratories across Kashmir. Had the doctors of Government hospitals particularly Block Medical Officers (BMOs), Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) and Medical Superintendents taken note of such public complaints against the touts of private diagnostic laboratories and initiated stringent action against them, the touts of private diagnostic centres won’t dare to roam about freely and approach the patients outside Government hospitals for forcing them to conduct diagnostic tests at private diagnostic laboratories of their choice across Kashmir.
“Since the government can’t in any way look away from the public complaints against the private diagnostic centres fielding touts to force patients to conduct diagnostic tests at the private diagnostic laboratories of their choice, the Kashmir’s health department deserves all compliments for having directed BMOs, CMOs and Medical Superintendents to even seek the assistance of law enforcers for taking stringent action against the touts carrying out unlawful and unethical practices outside Government hospitals across Kashmir . However the implementation of the initiative taken by the health department needs to be reviewed from time to time at the highest level as such an approach would show perceptible change in the unethical and unlawful activities of the touts of private diagnostic centres outside Government hospitals across Kashmir. Otherwise also the proper regulation of the working of private diagnostic centres necessitates the inspection of the equipments being used by private diagnostic laboratories for conducting tests and also the verification of the fee structure enforced upon patients for diagnostic tests without the consent and approval of the prescribe authorities of health department.”
Though the regulation of working of the diagnostic laboratories should have been the priority for the health and medical education department in Jammu & Kashmir but the authorities never bother to regulate the working of private diagnostic laboratories even in the urban areas including the twin capital cities-Srinagar and Jammu. Since the government can’t in any way look away from the public complaints against the private diagnostic centres fielding touts to force patients to conduct diagnostic tests at the private diagnostic laboratories of their choice, the Kashmir’s health department deserves all compliments for having directed BMOs, CMOs and Medical Superintendents to even seek the assistance of law enforcers for taking stringent action against the touts carrying out unlawful and unethical practices outside Government hospitals across Kashmir . However the implementation of the initiative taken by the health department needs to be reviewed from time to time at the highest level as such an approach would show perceptible change in the unethical and unlawful activities of the touts of private diagnostic centres outside Government hospitals across Kashmir. Otherwise also the proper regulation of the working of private diagnostic centres necessitates the inspection of the equipments being used by private diagnostic laboratories for conducting tests and also the verification of the fee structure enforced upon patients for diagnostic tests without the consent and approval of the prescribe authorities of health department.
