72-hour ultimatum: Suspend Childrens Hospital professor, says YDA

Professor Cheema denies allegations, says the doctors are blaming her for their own failing.

LAHORE:

The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab on Monday gave the Health Department an ultimatum to suspend Professor Huma Cheema of the Childrens Hospital Lahore in 72 hours.

At a press conference at the CHL on Monday, YDA office bearers said that Professor Cheema had been involved in gross misappropriation, private practice at the public hospital and selling milk at a ward she is in charge of, in violation of rules. The YDA office bearers produced some documents claiming that Professor Cheema had been hired illegally. An inquiry initiated against her before 2003 was quashed without conclusive results after former chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi verbally asked the hospital administration not to proceed against Professor Cheema, YDA office bearers said.

They also said that two rooms at the ward had been reserved for private patients. They are actually doctors’ rooms but are being used for Professor Cheema’s private practice, they said. “We have lists of patients who have been privately examined and treated at the hospital,” they claimed.

The office bearers also accused the hospital’s administration of embezzling Rs20 million and said that several doctors working in the Emergency Department hadn’t received their monthly allowance for several years. They said Professor Cheema sold milk packs in wards for Rs5,000 per pack while milk was available at Rs500 in the market.

Professor Huma Cheema told The Express Tribune that the YDA office bearers had levelled baseless allegations against her. “If the YDA has dug out a redundant report that someone typed up before 2003 and no action was taken on it, what can I say about it? I find it undignified to even respond to these accusations,” she said. “Which patients are they serving by not performing their duties? If these doctors fail their exams and do not perform their duties they cannot be allowed to dump the onus of their failures on professors who are doing their work,” she said.

Professor Cheema said not a single patient had ever complained against her. “They [the YDA] know why we keep milk in the ward. They know very well that infants may die if not provided the milk. They are manipulating facts,” she said.

Liver patients have been suffering greatly because the YDA doesn’t let doctors work in the ward, she said.

The doctors stopped working in the Gastro Ward last week after a YDA member was asked to work an additional 24 hours as punishment for negligence on duty.

Professor Cheema said other departments have no expertise to handle these patients. “My patients know me and the YDA cannot get this ward shut by making baseless claims,” she said.

Professor Cheema had earlier said that she had not been working for any private hospital. She also said she had established the ward, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons had endorsed it for its fellowship programme.

“Quite often there are three patients on one bed in this 20-bed unit. Do you think the affluent will like put up with such treatment?” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2014.