Author Topic: PIMS Action Committee no decision  (Read 1603 times)

Offline fizza bano

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PIMS Action Committee no decision
« on: May 03, 2010, 10:12:29 AM »
PIMS Action Committee no decision

Islamabad:Rejecting rumours that kept circulating during the day, PIMS Action Committee (PAC) Chairman Dr. Zaheer Abbasi has clarified that no decision has been taken to lock the Outpatient Departments (OPDs) of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) as the doctors’ strike for reinstatement of the hospital’s former executive director continues on Monday.

“While the majority of doctors has decided to stay away from OPDs, we have no objection in case anyone voluntarily wants to do OPDs,” Dr. Zaheer said while talking to ‘The News’ here on Sunday. He said all emergency areas in the hospital would remain open despite the strike. Moreover, the strength of doctors in these areas has also been increased to handle urgent cases. Cold cases will not be attended during the period of the strike.

“This is a bitter decision to take. However, we want the Ministry of Health to realise that rather than asking Dr. Ghazala Mehmood to resign and having her unceremoniously removed from the post of executive director, it should have, on the contrary, taken a stand for the humiliation and misbehaviour that she faced.”

Dr. Zaheer said the hospital does not want to have a confrontation with anyone — be it the Ministry of Health or the nurses. “We wish to uphold the sanctity of our noble profession. Our fight is for a bigger cause. The Ministry of Health needs to rethink its decision of suspending Dr. Ghazala, along with a casualty medical officer, a security guard and a driver,” he said. Dr. Zaheer wondered how a senior doctor like Dr. Ghazala, with over 25 years of service to the profession, could have been suspended without a proper inquiry being conducted.

The PAC chief regretted the deterioration that has come to characterise PIMS on account of lack of continuity of care and collapse of systems. “We have had 3 to 4 executive directors in the last 6 months alone; this obviously reflects poorly on patient care,” he remarked.

Dr. Zaheer shared that one particular ward of the PIMS has only 5 nurses against 60 patients. “We are working in pathetic conditions; and on top of that, rather than being respected, we are continuously being harassed on one count or the other,” he protested.

On the nurses’ front, there are predictions of another storm looming large on account of two reasons: firstly, no alternative accommodation has been arranged for the 15 lady doctors who were supposed to have vacated the nurses’ hostel by May 3 as per the agreement document signed between the nurses and the Ministry of Health; and secondly, the Ministry of Health has not issued any notification in black & white yet regarding the suspension of Dr. Ghazala and three others.

“The nurses have internally decided to throw the baggage of the lady doctors out in the corridors if they do not vacate the hostel by May 3. They are also planning to continue their strike because of the Ministry of Health’s failure to honour its promise of suspending the four persons in question,” a credible source told this correspondent.

Should this happen, PIMS is likely to turn into a hotbed for a law and order situation today (Monday). The acting executive director of PIMS, Dr. Mehmood Jamal, however, thinks otherwise. “I have talked to the principal of the School of Nursing. We are trying to buy some time from them to be able to arrange alternative accommodation for lady doctors. We have already started some renovation work within the doctors’ hostel to solve the issue. This is being done on war-footing and through mutual understanding,” he said, when asked.

On another front, while the three-member fact-finding inquiry committee constituted by the Ministry of Health gears up to start its job from today (Monday), doctors are expressing strong reservations about extending any amount of cooperation to facilitate the probe. The news