Health dept decides to rope in expert doctors from private institutions

Kolkata: In a unique move the state Health department has decided to rope in specialist doctors from private hospitals to ensure better treatment for the patients, at the government-run multi-superspecialty hospitals across the state.

The Health department will now allow distinguished doctors from private establishments having expertise in various fields to treat patients at these hospitals.

Many of the expert doctors had earlier urged the state government to serve the patients in the newly-constructed multi-superspecialty hospitals in the state.

An order has been issued by the Director of Medical Education in the state recently in this regard, saying that the expert doctors from private facilities who are willing to provide superspecialty services to the patients, will be tagged with any unit of similar discipline at different government hospitals and medical colleges, so that they can perform surgeries as a team.

These doctors from the private establishments will also be allowed to participate in academic sessions, training and skill building of the medical students and faculties.

This will help in an exchange of thoughts between the government and private doctors and also in sharing their expertise. There are many expert doctors in the private hospitals of the state, whose participation would help the Health department to extend better services in the government hospitals.

As there has been a crisis of expert doctors, the superspecialty doctors from various medical colleges regularly visit these hospitals to treat patients and perform difficult surgeries, following the directives of the state government.

At present there are around 42 multisuperspecialty hospitals functioning in the state.

According to a senior Health department official, the expert doctors from the private hospitals who will be visiting the government establishments will be offered a remuneration of Rs 1,500 per hour for the services they extend to the patients. The private doctors will be entitled to devote six hours a day, for a maximum of three days a week.

The principals and medical superintendents would engage these doctors with prior approval from the Director of Medical Education or the Director of Health Service. The hospital superintendents would act as the drawing and disbursing authority for paying the honorarium to the visiting doctors.

"Many experts from the private hospitals have submitted their expression of interest to actively participate in the field of superspecialties like pediatric surgery, neurosurgery, craniofacial surgery, pediatric neurosurgery, maxilla facial and head neck surgeries including trauma patients, pediatric and adult cardiac surgeries. After considering the issue, the department has finally decided to utilise their services," a senior Health department official said.