LAHORE: Senior doctors continue to flout the orders of doing afternoon rounds in addition to the morning visits of wards despite three warnings, The Nation has learnt.

Punjab Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Department made Professors/Consultants of tertiary care hospitals duty bound to visit respective wards for the second time at or after 1:00pm to get compliance of advice in the morning round and discharge clinically stable patients to vacate space for fresh admissions.

The faculty members, however, have turned a deaf ear to the orders issued on February 19 to Vice Chancellors/Principals of medical universities/colleges and Medical Superintendents of tertiary care hospitals. They carried on the practice of not doing afternoon raids and as such not submitting weekly reports to technical wing of the Department despite issuance of stern warning notices.

To avoid action, some departments have started submitting reports, showing presence of consultants at wards in the afternoon. The technical wing of the Department, however, is not satisfied on these reports for not carrying necessary information relating to discharge of patients.

The survey conducted by this scribe during the last 2-3 days also revealed that consultants at most of the department at all major hospitals were not complying with the orders of afternoon rounds.

“No senior doctor is coming in the afternoon. The juniors too are not listening and the patients are at the mercy of nurses and paramedical staff”, said Muhammad Hanif, attendant of a patient at Medical Ward of Services Hospital.

Similar statements were given by patients and their attendants at various wards of Jinnah Hospital, Mayo Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and Lahore General Hospital.

“The aim behind second visit of wards after morning round is to improve health care service delivery and rationalize the use of available resources”, said an official at Health Department.

“During morning rounds, faculty members give orders to junior doctors regarding treatment/handling of patients. There is a gap till next morning round when consultants check the compliance of previous orders and issue fresh directions. Sometime the patient is fit to be discharged but the bed remains occupied unnecessarily till the next day. Thus the patients seeking indoor services at overburdened hospitals face huge inconvenience”, he said.

Professors/Associate Professors of overburdened General Medicine, General Surgery, Gynecology, Orthopedics, Pediatrics Medicine, Cardiology and Neurosurgery Departments have been asked to take second round for timely feedback from junior doctors and discharge of patients soon after recovery.

“It will cause timely discharge of patients and create space for fresh admissions”, the official said.

“Unfortunately, senior faculty members are not ready to comply with the orders. The orders issued for improving service delivery will be implemented in letter and spirit and show cause notices will be issued to the violators”, he said.