Roughly two weeks have lapsed since staff at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) received the notification that they will be deputed to provincial administration.
Yet even after all this time, the situation of these employees is in a state of limbo. Even though Health Secretary Rizwan Ahmed promised the immediate release of funds after the administrative change, so far no money has been received by the hospital administrations. Currently JPMC’s medical supplies are running dangerously low; in fact the supply of nitrous oxide has completely run out. A press conference was held by the three-day-old steering committee, comprising representatives of all grades and positions at the hospital, to determine the course of action for the three institutions.
“We are not against the implementation of the 18th amendment but we don’t understand the discrimination [we face]. How can the centre pick and choose which institutions to keep [under federal jurisdiction] and which to send to the province?” asked committee member Dr Liaquat Ali.
Defending the steering committee’s insistence on remaining under the federal government, Ali presented the legal aspect of the issue. “The federal legislative list under the constitution’s schedule 4.16 states that all training and research institutes should remain federal. Without altering this particular clause, how have these three institutions, which are responsible for over 80% of postgraduate training under the College of Physicians and Surgeons, be devolved?”
At the meeting, details of the health secretary’s meeting with the heads of the three institutes — Prof Tasnim Ahsan (JPMC), Dr Jamal Raza (NICH) and Dr Shah Zaman (NICVD) — were shared. “The health secretary suggested that all three institutions be made autonomous. However, he will need a month to properly research and assess the situation,” he added.
But even if the proposed autonomy does follow through, the steering committee believes that it cannot resolve all the issues that have cropped up as a result of the decision to devolve the institutions. “We have staff from all over the country; people from far-flung areas of Balochistan and Sindh and some from Punjab and the northern areas come to get treated in JPMC. Some families come to these institutes because they have associates from their areas working here and thus these medical institutes have a national reach.”
Ali, along with other members of the committee, assured that patient care will not be affected as a result of this discord between the institutes and the goverment. Nevertheless, he added that hospital staff should not be held responsible, if hospitals do not have adequate funds to provide basic supplies and perform its other functions.
Meanwhile, a notification for the regularisation of 114 contractual workers (from nearly 150 contract workers, who were relieved of their duties recently after their contract expired on June 30) was received by the administration of the hospitals. Interestingly the notification was not received directly from the federal government rather through a ‘friend in the media’, the committee explained. Still, the steering committee has acted on the notification and reinstated contractual workers from Grades 1 to 15. For the reinstatement of those in Grades 16 to 18 an ordinance will be required.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 13th, 2011.
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