Pakistan

Negligence: Pims lacks SOPs for male nurses in intensive care unit

The recent incident clearly showed that the male nurse at that ICU was working without the supervision of any doctor

Our Correspondent April 17, 2016

Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has no specific standard operating procedures for male nurses working in its intensive care unit and emergency wards.

An official at Pims said every ward has SOPs, but there was hardly any distinction between the conduct of male and female nurses.

The matter of SOPs assumed added urgency after the father of a paralyzed 20-year-old girl from Swat alleged that a male nurse, Krishan Kumar, sexually assaulted his daughter at the hospital’s ICU last week.

According to a committee report of Wafaqi Mohtasib (Ombudsman)’s Secretariat in 2015 on the state of affairs at Pims, Department of Rheumatology Associate Prof Dr Wajahat Aziz recommended that SOPs should be regularly audited by each department themselves and amended accordingly.

The recent incident clearly showed that the male nurse at that ICU was working without the supervision of any doctor. According to the report submitted by a committee of doctors to the Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division, all staff except the male nurse were sleeping at the time of the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 18^th, 2016.

COMMENTS (1)

Naeem | 8 years ago | Reply This presence of male nurses in ICUs and even Operation Recovery rooms where male and female patients are laid together (unfortunate) without a doctor (sometimes Aya sometimes not) is a common experience even in ARMY Hospitals. There is always a risk of such incidents.This is an Islamic country, please do something.This is not a big task just the doctors need to be caring Muslims.

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