LAHORE: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has taken notice of blatant violation committed by the Punjab Health Department by making appointment of ad hoc doctors at the Services Hospital despite a ban imposed by the ECP due to by-elections.

The ECP acted when Punjab Specialized Healthcare & Medical Education Department Secretary Ali Jan violated the code of conduct, made ad hoc appointments of the 27 doctors and issued a notification for ‘political gains’.

An official said he had ‘accommodated’ some office-bearers of the Young Doctors Association (YDA), Punjab, to get support for the ruling PML-N in the by-elections as they had been terminated from service during the PTI tenure in the province. He said then Punjab chief minister, Usman Buzdar, had terminated some doctors of the Services Hospital following an inquiry report which was launched when a young patient, Hamid, died due to alleged negligence of the medics.

According to the inquiry report, the on-duty doctors had declared the patient “received dead” by allegedly changing his admission record while the CCTV footage later showed him entering the hospital on foot. Responding to the protest launched by the relatives and attendants of the deceased patient, some YDA men gathered there from various wards of the hospital and allegedly tortured them too.

ECP takes notice on monitoring officer’s complaint

The official said the health department also ignored the qualified and experienced doctors who had conducted postgraduate training at the Services Hospital and preferred those who mattered in ‘political agitations’ and the motive was to win their support for the ruling elite.

He said the health department appointed those having degrees from China’s medical colleges, ignoring those qualified and experienced doctors who graduated from local government medical institutes. Similarly, a majority of them were those who were key office-bearers of the YDA, including its Punjab chapter president, showing the scale of favouritism.

The official said two YDA Punjab associations were operating in the public sector teaching institutions and other hospitals of the province. The health department accommodated one of these in the ad hoc appointments by adopting the policy of ‘divide and rule’, the official said.

He further added that two former senior health officers who sit these days in the Chief Minister Secretariat also played a key role in these appointments. These two officers had been very close to the particular group of the YDA Punjab during the tenure of the PTI in the province, the official said, and claimed that Chief Minister Hamza Shahbaz was kept in the dark about violations by the health authorities.

However, the immediate issue that had drawn the attention of the ECP towards appointment of 27 medics at the Services Hospital was “sheer violation” of the ban imposed by the ECP, he said.

Lahore District Monitoring Officer (DMO) Adnan Iqbal brought this matter to the notice of the ECP late on Saturday. In a separate letter the same day, he also asked health secretary Ali Jan to withdraw the appointments of the medics forthwith.

“This is contradictory to the direction issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan which clearly illustrates no government or authority shall post or transfer any officer in the district where schedule for by-elections has been issued on May 25, 2022 till the publication of name of returned candidate,” says a letter by the DMO.

Punjab Health Secretary Ali Jan was not available for comment despite repeated attempts to get his version on the issue.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2022