Rawalpindi Medical College: PM orders evacuation of girls hostel

Premier also orders immediate functioning of Liver Diseases and Transplant Centre.

ISLAMABAD:

The Young Doctors Association (YDA) of Rawalpindi’s plea for evacuation of Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC) hostel has finally been heard. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Monday ordered officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the illegal occupants, to vacate the building immediately.

Talking to The Express Tribune, President YDA Rawalpindi Muhammad Haroon said that the RMC hostel had been illegally occupied by NAB officials for over nine years. He said that officials had occupied the building temporarily in 2002 but then refused to vacate it. As a result, female students coming in from across the country had to suffer due to lack of accommodation. These students had been forced to live in servant quarters in the old hostel building, while some were accommodated in doctor’s residence taken by RMC administration, he said.

Haroon said that efforts to reclaim RMC hostel are not yet over and the association is planning to set up a protest camp in front of the building till the time it gets vacated.

Meanwhile, the PM also directed the Ministry of Health to ensure functioning of the first Liver Diseases and Transplant Centre (LDTC) established at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims). The PM said that the centre should be made operational by the end of May and conduct its first liver transplant operation by June this year.

First announced by former prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and then by PM Gillani on November 4 in response to the rising number of hepatitis patients in the country, the project remains neglected by the health ministry. He stressed that LDTC must have state-of-the-art medical facilities, should meet international standards, and be run by the best professionals in the country.

“The poor and needy patients suffering from hepatitis should be given free treatment at the LDTC,” said Gillani. He said genuinely needy and deserving people will be identified by a board of eminent individuals.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2011.