On an average, each government doctor is visited by five to six patients every day, which in other words, mean that a doctor, on an average, does not get one patient in an hour during his eight hour duty schedule on a working day.

Jalandhar district has 220 government doctors for the local Civil Hospital and other hospitals and Primary Health Centres. As per statistics gathered by The Tribune, these institutes, on an average, are visited by 1,500 to 1,550 patients daily. The average number of patients received by a doctor this way comes to about eight in a day, which meant that a doctor received one patient each hour.

Similarly, Hoshiarpur district, which has eight Civil Hospitals and Public Health Centres (PHCs), has 231 doctors against the sanctioned strength of 258 doctors. The average daily inflow of patients in all eight government hospitals and PHCs was recorded to be around 1200-1300.

In Nawanshahr district, about 800-900 patients pour in daily in four government hospitals at Banga, Nawanshahr, Mukandpur and Saroya. As many as 85 doctors were working in these hospitals against the sanctioned strength of 94.

The state of Kapurthala, which has 54 doctors working against sanctioned strength of 61, is also not very different. The poor daily inflow of patients on working days suggest that at some hospitals, certain doctors were not even getting a single patient during every two hours. The break-up of average daily patient inflow on working days show that the state of government hospitals was exactly the same.

The Kapurthala Civil Hospital has 19 doctors. It has daily OPD inflow of between 225 and 250 patients. With 16 doctors, the government hospital at Phagwara receives about similar number of patients.

The Sultanpur Lodhi hospital again has 16 doctors, but, the daily average patient inflow is restricted between 180 and 190. With two and six doctors, government hospitals at Tibba and Begowal receive around 40 and 90 patients, respectively. If the Hoshiarpur Civil Hospital received about 350 patients daily, the number at PHC, Hariana, was 30-35.

Similarly, the average daily patient inflow at different government hospitals and PHCs of Hoshiarpur was: Dasuya (100-125), Mukerian (250-300), Mahilpur-150-175, Tanda (200-250), Garhshankar (150-178) and Talwara (150-175).

In Nawanshahr, the average break-up was as following: Nawanshahr Civil Hospital (125-150), Banga (60-65) and Saroya (50-55).