• Senior Pims official terms move ‘unfortunate’, says it will force doctors to quit
• Ministry official says decision will address administrative issues faced by hospitals

ISLAMABAD: Amid reservations expressed by doctors who termed the move ‘unfortunate’, the caretaker government has decided to appoint serving officers of the Pakistan Army Medical Corps as the heads of the two largest state-run hospitals in Islamabad – the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and Polyclinic – on deputation for three years.

However, the spokesperson of the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) Sajid Shah said the decision was taken in the “best interest of the patients and health sector”, which would “streamline and address all the issues of the hospitals”.

A letter from the health ministry sent to the defence ministry said that the posts of the executive director in Pims and Polyclinic were vacant due to the non-availability of eligible officers from the feeding cadre for promotion to the ED. It stated that because of the “importance it cannot be left out to function without qualified heads of the institutions”.

“In order to ensure effective health care service delivery for the public at large in ICT, it has been desired to fill the posts on secondment basis from Pakistan Army Medical Corps as an interim arrangement,” it added.

“...It is, therefore, requested to convey the availability / spareability of qualified and capable hospital managers of equivalent grade i.e. BS-21 from Pakistan Army Medical Corps for posting as ED Pims and FGPC (BS-21) on deputation basis for a period of three years and until further orders under standard terms and conditions,” it stated.

A senior officer of the health ministry, on the condition of anonymity, said that the appointment of serving army officers would address most of the issues of the hospital.

“Unfortunately almost 80pc of the senior doctors do not come to the hospital on time and the same is the situation regarding the junior doctors and paramedics. We receive tens of complaints, on a daily basis, about the attitude and absence of the staff of both hospitals,” the official said, adding that “only an army officer will be able to enforce discipline and best possible treatment” at these hospitals.

He alleged that doctors at both hospitals were running “labs, MRI and other radiological test machines and force patients to get them tested from outside the hospital at testing facilities owned by them”.

A Pims senior doctor, however, expressed frustration with the decision and termed it “unfortunate”. He claimed that army officers were being appointed in most institutions across the country under the pretext of corruption.

“I don’t want to comment about how the institutions, headed by the officers of armed forces, are being run. [I] just want to say that there are competent people in the health sector who can be appointed as EDs.”

“If there is no competent person in [these] hospitals, the ministry could have hired a civilian. Unfortunately, the officers of armed forces only focus on time-in and time-out and do not care about the quality of work,” he said. “They don’t analyse how many operations a doctor does every day,” he complained.

“We are already facing a shortage of human resources and I fear that many doctors will quit…as they are highly qualified and have options to work within the country and outside the country,” he said.

Spokesperson Sajid Shah, on the other hand, said that caretaker minister Nadeem Jan was a “true health professional and he wanted to bring reforms to the health sector”. “I believe that it is the best possible option to fill the seats of heads in both hospitals. It will address most of the complaints and issues we receive daily,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2023