Looking to hire: ‘NICH needs 250 more paediatricians’

Sindh CM vows to make it a model children hospital.

KARACHI: Around 250 positions of paediatricians are lying vacant in different departments of the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), said the hospital’s director Prof Syed Jamal Raza.

It is the only hospital where children are treated free of charge, said Raza while briefing a meeting at CM House on Monday. The Sindh government has provided it with all the facilities but the filling the vacant positions is necessary due to the growing pressure from the patients, he added.

Speaking about the appointment of required staff, the chief minister Qaim Ali Shah asked Raza to constitute a committee to appoint lower staff. The court has granted stay against appointment of senior staff, therefore an alternative plan must be made to fill the vacant positions. “I cannot allow anybody to create hindrances in the treatment of ailing children,” he said.



NICH is a six-storey building with over 500 beds for the children, said Raza. The out-patient department (OPD) of NICH caters to around 1,500 patients daily and 29,000 patients are admitted annually. The hospital conducts 10,000 operations every year. Currently, about 815 doctors, paramedical staffs among others are employed at the hospital, he added.

NICH is one of the major hospitals devolved to the Sindh government under 18th Amendment, said the CM. “We have given special attention to this hospital and would further expand it in the larger interest of the people of Sindh,” he said.

Future plans

The CM also said that he had allocated an annual development programme to NICH for the expansion of the nursery. Upon this, the health minister Jam Mehtab Dahar informed him that the nursery has been expanded to entire floor. Earlier, there were 40 incubators but now 60 incubators have been installed there, added Dahar.

CM also said that he would establish another block for NICH for which he directed Dahar to submit him detailed proposal. “I want to make this institute (NICH) a model children hospital. This is the only hospital where children are treated free of charge and even the receipt fee is not charged. The benefit of the investment in this hospital trickles down directly to the poor children,” said Shah. The meeting was also attended by chief secretary Siddique Memon, principal secretary to CM Alamuddin Bullo, health secretary Ahmed Bux Narejo and finance secretary Sohail Rajput.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2016.