ISLAMABAD, Nov 21: The Standing Committee on Capital Administration and Development (CAD) on Wednesday recommended termination of doctors guilty of vandalism at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).

“Terminate them and report to us,” Jamshed Dasti, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) legislator and chairman of the NA panel, said during the meeting, which was attended by ministry officials and Pims management.

“We have been asked by the chairman to ensure implementation of recommendations and we have to honour them,” Prof Riaz Warraich, executive director Pims, told Dawn after attending the meeting.

On October 20, two doctors were left injured when rival groups attacked each other over a strike call given against the appointment of the hospital’s new executive director.

During the brawl, furniture and windows in the executive director’s office were also broken.

The Young Doctors Association’s Islamabad chapter had blamed outsiders for damaging the public property.

A security official at Pims said doctors belonging to one of the groups, who had come from outside, damaged the property and Associate Professor Amjad Chaudhry, who was working as the acting executive director of the hospital that day, was also not given any cover by the security staff.

Later, the Ministry of CAD held an inquiry and declared three house officers and a medical officer of the hospital guilty of damaging public property and interrupting routine work at the hospital.

Prof Warraich when asked whether the young doctors were guilty of vandalism, he replied: “Young doctors wanted to prove their point that the hospital will be run in a manner they want and don’t want to have any administration.”

“Now the ministry has also conducted a probe and want to see action against doctors who broke federal government property,” said Prof Warraich.

However, when his attention was drawn toward the fact that a few outsiders had entered the hospital premises, which led to the brawl, he insisted: “We have checked with the security officials and they [security] maintain that no one entered the brawl from the outside. It was only in-house doctors who had damaged the property.”

“A doctor visiting from Poly Clinic to see his assistant professor at Pims had to intervene when the protesting doctors misbehaved with him [assistant professor],” asserted the executive director.

Asked whether the Pims management would look for a middle way to resolve the issue and save the careers of the young doctors, he maintained: “We will go by the directions of the ministry since it is the final authority on such decisions besides now the standing committee has taken up the matter.”