CNIC mandatory to get treatment at Rawalpindi BBH
Muhammad Qasim
RAWLPINDI: Provision of computerised national identity card (CNIC) is mandatory to get treatment at the Benazir Bhutto Hospital even in emergency. It is causing problems to patients and their attendants.
A number of people complain of the difficulties they have to face in case they forget to bring their CNICs while rushing to the hospital in emergency.“I rushed to the BBH in emergency and forgot to bring my CNIC and the CNIC of the patient, my father, because of which we have to suffer significant delay in getting treatment even at the emergency department of the hospital,” said Nabeel, attendant of a 70-year old patient, who was taken to the BBH in emergency because of having respiratory problems on Friday.
He said that the staff issuing registration slips for the patients in the emergency department of the BBH refused to register the patient. “The staff asked us to provide the CNIC of the patient or any of the attendants to get treatment that we did not have,” he said.
The family members of the 70-year old patient went to the office of medical superintendent of the hospital, but the MS was not available there. “Then, we went to the Deputy Medical Superintendent in emergency department who asked us to provide cell number after which our patient got registered at the hospital,” said Nabeel.
He added that the whole process took not less than half-an-hour and during the time period, the hospital staff did not attend the patient.
The BBH Chief Dr. Asif Qadir Mir, when contacted by ‘The News’ said that the provision of CNIC is mandatory to get treatment at the hospital. “We applied the condition not only to maintain record of the patients, but also to check illegitimate practices,” he said.
He explained that recently a girl left the hospital’s emergency department without notifying the hospital staff after giving birth to an illegitimate child.
He said that the hospital administration, however, has relaxed the condition of CNIC and directed the registration staff to get mobile number of the patient or attendant in case the patient do not have the CNIC to check illegal practices.
Dr. Mir said that the hospital is going to adopt a new model under which computerised data of registered patients with the hospital would be prepared. The new model namely patients’ feedback model would be operational within a month.
He said that the computerised data would be sent to the CM Secretariat on daily basis that would contact patients after random selection to get their feedback on quality of services being provided to them.
To a query, he said that patients and their attendants should cooperate with the hospital staff on the subject of record keeping and should bring their CNICs with them while coming to the hospital. “Patients or the attendants should also provide their mobile numbers to the hospital administration when required so that they can be contacted in case of any problem,” said Dr. Mir.
” 
” 
” 
” 
