Transfer to Sindh govt: Jinnah hospital calls for emergency meeting

Federally run hospitals prefer autonomy to being run by Sindh government.

KARACHI: The academic council of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) along with the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) will meet on Thursday (today) morning to discuss their long-standing demand to be elevated to the status of a university remaining under federal jurisdiction.

The debate for the elevation, while not a new one, picked up momentum since verbal approval was given by President Asif Ali Zardari for the conversion of provincially-run Sindh Medical College (SMC) to a university. A senior official at the SMC, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained the “politically motivated” background of the entire issue.

“After the 18th amendment granted greater provincial autonomy, the three hospitals [JPMC, NICH, NICVD] currently under federal jurisdiction, [should] be brought under the provincial administration,” he said. “However, this is largely unacceptable to the senior faculty and staff at these hospitals.”

There are several reasons for this. One is job security, which may be a problem under the provincial administration. Another is whether or not faculty and staff seniority and grade achieved at the federal level will be completely transferred to the provincial set-up.

A third factor and perhaps the most important one is centralising power, bringing all major hospitals under one department.

Another potential glitch that was being looked into was whether or not two university hospitals in the public sector were permissible. “Since Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) is a university for health sciences and SMC will be a medical university there is no overlap,” said a member of the health department, who requested not to be named.

When contacted for a comment, JPMC executive director Dr Seemin Jamali she could not say anything at the moment but she did confirm that the meeting with the NICH and NICVD will be held.

SMC is a component of DUHS which was elevated to a university in 2003 after which the former merged with it. Previously SMC was under the health department.

Students at SMC would complete their last year at JPMC in order to get the required practical experience at the hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2010.