ISLAMABAD: A Senate committee decided to ask for the income tax record of the doctors of the government-run hospitals in Islamabad from the Federal Board of Revenue on learning about their `unethical practices` on Wednesday.

Chairman Talha Mehmood of the Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat took the decision after a briefing by the Dr Javed Akram, Vice Chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), observing that he himself had received a number of complaints that government hospitals doctors spend most of their time in private hospitals or clinics.

`Doctors earn hundreds of thousandsofrupeeseveryday butpayjust afewthousandinincometaxdeducted from their salaries,` he said.Dr Akram informed the committee that 60 percent of the doctors on Pims` payrolls also work in private hospitals.

It is a general public perception that most government doctors, especially of dean and professor ranks, attend their hospital duties only briefly, particularly in the Out Patients Department (OPD) and are found more attentive in their private practice elsewhere.

OPD staff often suggests to patients that they better consult the doctor at his or hers private practice place.

In surgical cases, some doctors themselves make that suggestion citing the advantages of quick, safe surgery post-operation care in private hospitals.

Naturally, patients and their relatives fall for it because they don`t want to take risks.

Senator Haji Saifullah Khan Bangash, a member of the committee,affirmed such perceptions by recounting his personal experience at Pims a few months back.

His 17-year-old son was being treated in Pims, he said, when an injection given to him by a doctor sent him into coma.

`I shifted him to a private hospital where he was put on the ventilator.

Luckily after 18 days my son recovered but I ended up with a bill of over Rs700,000 for his treatment.,` he said.

Though he wanted to take action against the doctor but did notfor he apologized, he said that `doctors should care for patients more than for money`.

`I have been considering making a welfare trust for providing free treatment to poor people,` said Sen.

Bangash.

VC Pims Dr Javed Akram told the Senate committee about a proposal to build five towers on the Pims groundsfor establishing medical facilities, school and college, open also to foreign students.

One of the towers would be dedicated for doctors` private practice, he said.

`Professors of the Pims hospital will be invited to conduct private practice there after hospital duty hours to the beneñt of all the patients, the doctors and the hospital,` he said.

`We have been working hard to materialize the proposal to resolve the issue of private practice by our (government) doctors,` he said.

Turkish and Chinese companies are interested in building and investing in the five towers at a cost of Rs30 billion, according to the Pims chief, according to the Pims chief.

`If constructed on Build-OperateTransfer basis, Pims will own the five towers within seven years,` he said.