MUZAFFARABAD, April 13: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has asked the administration of the Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), Muzaffarabad, to fulfil requirements to process its case for the approval of the institute for house-job training, Dawn learnt here on Saturday.

PMDC team had inspected the AIMS late last year to determine its sufficiency for the purpose of house-job training in medicine, surgery and radiology.

However, the council found that the hospital, set up in an old match factory, was not “purposely built and still in the process of development” and required certain facilities to get the case approved.

In a letter, received recently, the PMDC had asked the executive director of the hospital to build seminar rooms for weekly clinical meetings and conferences, and to set up a proper library in the institute, having more reference books, besides providing computers for the consultants and medical officers.

The team observed that the condition of pathological laboratories was not satisfactory, though some routine tests were being performed there, special tests were being referred to private laboratories. Thus, the council had called for the improvement in the functioning of the laboratories.

At the time of inspection, it was also found that four new operation theatres with all necessary facilities were in the stage of completion and surgery was performed in the Combined Military Hospital.

The medical and surgical units were mixed and no proper allocation of beds for departments was made.

The council also called for making the theatres functional as early as possible besides proper allocation of beds for each subject/specialty. It also recommended that there should be proper labour room, and an eight-bedded nursery with incubators.

The AIMS had also been asked for setting up separate OPD for each department and a full functioning casualty department.

The team, the letter read, had observed that the knowledge of the nurses and paramedical staff was unsatisfactory, therefore they required a lot of training. There were 11 medical officers in total, which, compared to the load of work, were insufficient, it said asking for employing more medical officers. There was no accommodation, the team found out, for the house officers, and said the facility should be built close to the hospital.

The administration of the AIMS is yet to answer the letter.

When contacted by Dawn , an official of the institute admitted that most of the things pointed out by the PMDC were correct.

He claimed that the operation theatres had started functioning soon after the team’s visit, but later the operations had to stopped, because the hospital’s only anaesthetist went on leave, and the health department did not provided his substitute, he said.

The other problems, he said, related to the construction of the new building in the premises of the institute.