April 1, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 28, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 31: The Federal Government Services Hospital, commonly known as Polyclinic, has initiated a much delayed move to remove deficiencies which led to withdrawal of its teaching hospital status by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan (CPSP).

“We are in close contact with the CPSP and the situation will soon be resolved,” hospital director Dr Javaid Chaudhry told Dawn.

However, he said the CPSP should not have taken the step without re-inspection of the hospital.

The CPSP withdrew Polyclinic’s teaching hospital status on various grounds, including failure to develop a library and non- payment of enhanced stipends to trainee residential medical officers (TRMOs). The college also expressed dissatisfaction with the teaching quality at the hospital.

After a day-long meeting with senior officers, faculty supervisors and TRMOs, the hospital management on Monday decided to shift tea room and accounts branch from a hall, which was earlier called library. The management has also asked senior doctors and supervisors to donate medical books and journals to the library to give it a proper look. The tea room has been shifted to the auditorium.

However, the senior officials of the hospital agreed that there were deficiencies, which they failed to rectify in time.

The TRMOs have been asked to continue working till the hospital receives official notification regarding withdrawal of its teaching status.

The TRMOs were also asked to prepare a memorandum to be presented to health minister Mohammad Nasir Khan and secretary health Ejaz Rahim for the resolution of their problem. They have been asked that the memorandum should describe their problems like non-payment of stipends and unavailability of accommodation for night duties, as male doctors have to leave the rest room in case lady doctors are on duty.

The TRMOs, while talking to Dawn, agreed that the teaching quality at the hospital was of low standard. They said they would demand improvement in this regard according to the standards set by the CPSP.

They also quoted the hospital director as saying that the hospital needed better patient care, and that he was not interested in teaching. For this, they added, the director had to receive a lot of resistance from them.

The hospital has also decided to revive the academic council and to initiate evaluation process of teaching standard.

Meanwhile, a senior management official told this reporter that the CPSP, during an inspection two months ago, had pointed out certain deficiencies, including non-provision of library facilities. But, the college failed to consider their request to re-inspect the hospital and took the action in haste without inquiring whether the facilities had been upgraded or not.

He said the hospital had written a letter to the college to re-inspect the hospital before finalizing its report. He also questioned as to why the college took the action at this point when the deficiencies it had pointed out existed for the last 15 years. He added that during this period a number of students did post-graduation from the hospital.

Meanwhile, the TRMOs told Dawn that the students who had earlier passed out, appeared in the examination from this hospital, but received their training from other professional hospitals.