PESHAWAR: The administration of Lady Reading Hospital has expresseditsinability to discharge `influential` prisoners admitted to the medico-legal ward of the hospital on health conditions, according to sources.

They said that the people facing corruption changes landed at the hospital on different health grounds. The jail authorities had sent letters to LRH to conduct thorough examination of the prisoners and discharge them if they were fit, but only the consultants, who hospitalised them, were authorised to discharge them from hospital, they added.

`Except a female foreigner arrested by Anti-Narcotics Force on account of smuggling, the other nine staying at the medico-legal ward, are being investigated for corruption cases instituted by National Accountability Bureauand Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission and the courts have sent them to jail, sources said.

Senior ofñcials of the hospital said that they were going to constitute a medical board to decide whether to discharge them or keep them at the hospital. The board would make decision on case to case basis, they said.

They said that the hospital administration had nothing to do with the patients as they had been admitted by professors and associate professors and only they were responsible to evaluate their health status and discharge them from hospital.

They said that as opposed to jail, the arrested persons were enjoying freedom in the hospital. They added that they had conveyedit to the jail officials that those, who admitted them, could send them as the hospital administration was not involved in treatment process of patients.

`Interestingly, four of the arrested persons have been admitted for skin diseases while one each has been hospitalised on the instructions of doctors of cardiology, eye, ENT, cardiovascular and orthopedic wards. Formation of a medical board is the only solution,for the examination of these people,` they said.

The hospital officials said that many of those patients could be sent back if the government directly instructed the professors of the concerned wards instead of the medical and health directors and resident medical of ficer.

`In the past, we constituted medical board when some accused were allowed to stay here for longer period,` they said.

`A former provincial minister and bureaucrats are among the beneficiaries about whom the LRH administration doesn`t know when they will be discharged by the doctors concerned to be sent back to the jail,` they added.

They said that the medical board would examine them and make a conclusion about justification for their admission.

The 12-bed MLC ward atop the three-storey was set up in 2007 to provide admission facilities to seriously ill prisoners referred from jail. As per rule, patients are seen by the specialists concerned at the OPD and those requiring operations or any medical intervention are hospitalised.

`But the MLC has become a favourite place for the people wanted in corruption cases and gen-uine patients are seldom sent.

People fall suddenly ill when they are arrested on charges of corruption,` sources said.

A few months back, the chief justice Peshawar High Court had expressed displeasure over the presence of hernia patients in jail and had directed for their immediate referral to consultants.

`However, the prisoners with money and influence are able to escapejailand breathe infresh air in accompaniment of their near and dear ones,` sources said.

They said that since September 9, the ward had become home to people arrested in corruption. `The hospital is unable to send them back to prison. They receive guests frequently,` they added.

Sources said that the ward was looked after by general medical officer and nurse while consultants came occasionally because the patients were at ease.

Officials said that MLC ward, only of its kind in the country, was also a threat to the patients` attendantsatthe plasticsurgery,burn and head injury wards located below on second andHrstnoor.

Health minister and secretary health didn`t receive telephone calls made by this correspondent to get their version.