December 10, 2001	Monday	Ramazan 24, 1422

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MULTAN, Dec 9: Leiah District Nazim Shahabuddin Seharr has said that he had no choice but to order registration of a case against the DHQ hospital MS and other staff.

“The Wapda officials were threatening that if their demand was not accepted, they would suspend the electricity supply to Leiah city,” he told this correspondent by telephone on Saturday.

However, he was not ready to accept the demand of the doctors and paramedical observing strike.

Mr Seharr said that he was in Fatehpur village on Nov 23 when the Leiah DCO informed him that some Wapda officials had severed the electricity supply to the DHQ hospital.

“I was told that the Wapda men were not ready to restore power supply in spite of repeated requests by the DCO and the district police officer. I rushed to the town where scores of Wapda officials had been staging a sit-in in front of the Leiah city police station and demanding registration of an abduction case against the MS.

“I had confirmed that the Wapda team was illegally confined in the hospital. It was wrong that the members of the team were also beaten up by the hospital staff.”

Mr Seharr, who became Nazim with a difference of three votes against his rival Niaz Jakharr in the run-off polls, said his political opponents had made a mountain out of a mole hill in the hospital-Wapda row.

He said he had written to both the health department and Wapda for the transfer of their respective staff responsible for the situation.

“Health department authorities accepted my request immediately while the response of the Wapda high-ups is being awaited,” he claimed. However, line superintendent Iqbal Dhalu had been transferred.

Mr Seharr said the protesting doctors were demanding transfer of the Wapda XEN and SDO concerned.

He said he met the protesting doctors and paramedical staff on Dec 7 at their camp and assured them that the case would be withdrawn and Wapda officials would be transferred.

He claimed that the doctors had withdrawn their demand regarding a judicial probe into the matter. Regarding the withdrawal of the transfer orders of the MS, the Nazim said: “I have flatly refused to accept this demand.”

He said he had to run the affairs of the district and if he started succumbing to the pressures then the objectives of the devolution plan would become impossible to achieve. “Why should not the MS serve in some other district,” he said.

About his personal grudges against Dr Syed, Mr Seharr said the doctor is a local and there could be an element of liking and disliking.

He alleged that the laboratory of the DHQ hospital had become inoperative since Dr Syed had taken charge of the MS some two years ago as he owned a private pathological laboratory in front of the hospital.

He further alleged that the Leiah EDO (health) had also complained time and again against the non-cooperative behaviour of Dr Syed.

The Nazim, however, admitted that the hospital had undergone radical changes under Dr Mukhtiyar Syed.

The hospital record belied the Nazim’s allegation that the hospital laboratory had become in-operative under the administration of Dr Syed who took charge on Dec 15, 1999.

According to the record in 1997, only 6,958 tests were conducted at the hospital laboratory; the figure was 5,926 in 1998; 3,828 in 1999; 11,482 in 2000 and 12,750 up to November 2001.

Sources in the DHQ hospital said that the post of pathologist had been lying vacant at the hospital for the last one year and Dr Syed had been doing extra labour in the laboratory apart from his administrative workload.

When contacted, Dr Syed denied that he had never been non-cooperative with the EDO (Health). However, being a member of the district health procurement committee, he had objected to the inflated rates of medicines and consumables the committee was to approve and subsequently the tenders had to be cancelled.

Meanwhile, the Leiah chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association will decide on Monday (today) its future course of action regarding protest against political interference in local health department affairs and excesses of Wapda officials.

Leiah Tehsil Council members are likely to hold a rally on Monday to express solidarity with the medical community.

The protest stemmed on Wednesday from a row between the DHQ hospital management and the local Wapda officials over the possession of a defective electric transformer.

Doctors and paramedical staff of all government and private sector health facilities observed two-day strike throughout the Leiah district against victimization of DHQ Hospital MS Dr Mukhtiyar Husain Syed and highhandedness of District Nazim and local Wapda authorities.

Leiah District Nazim Shahabuddin Seharr had ordered registration of an abduction case against the MS and other officials of the DHQ hospital. He had also directed holding of a judicial inquiry into the death of female patient owing to, what the Nazim alleged in a letter to Leiah DCO, deliberate switching off the power supply by the MS commissioned to the hospital through a generator.

The Nazim also forced the health department to transfer the MS. Official sources said that Punjab Health Secretary Hassan Waseem Afzal tried his best to convince Mr Seharr that he was setting a bad precedent. But the Nazim remained stick to his demand and the MS was transferred.