ISLAMABAD:
The executive director of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), Professor Mehmood Jamal, has been given the additional charge of principal of the Federal Medical and Dental College Federal Medical and Dental College (FMDC).
The decision raised the eyebrows of many senior doctors at the hospital, who were “baffled” at how a grade-20 official has been awarded two senior positions while many grade-21 officials at Pims who are qualified for the post were not even considered.
A hospital official requesting anonymity informed that the doctors who attended to President Asif Ali Zardari’s late father Hakim Ali Zardari when he was admitted in Pims, have been obliged with many privileges and benefits, including Pims ED Prof Jamal, who has been given the additional charge of FMDC principal. Other doctors have been obliged through extensions of their contracts, he added.
However, the hospital administration claims that the decision to appoint Prof Jamal as the principal of FMDC was taken several months earlier.
Senior doctors also expressed concern over the decision to temporarily set up the medical and dental college inside Pims Children’s Hospital in spite of a previous decision to set it up at the National Institute of Health (NIH). They said that the decision was taken without their consultation and the establishment has left little space for the outpatient department of Children’s Hospital, creating problems for the patients. They added that important patient records of Children’s Hospital have also been destroyed in the process.
Another official alleged that new health projects are being executed haphazardly and without proper planning, just to show the prime minister that work is being done in the health sector. “Why, when the college was supposed to be established in NIH, is it temporarily being set up in Pims in such a poor manner?” he asked, adding that the no work has been done on important projects including the liver transplant centre and cardiac surgery department.
The senior doctors claimed that since the ED took charge, there has been “chaos” in the hospital. “The hospital staffs are protesting every day; the OPDs are not working, and scheduled surgeries are not being conducted,” they said, adding that no formal enquiry was made into the death of a woman in the hospitals’ Maternal and Child Health Care Centre, an issue that was apparently “suppressed”.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 9th, 2011.
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