KARACHI, June 25: Over the last 10 years or so, six doctors and two other employees have been shot dead at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. As a result, fear reigns supreme in the third largest public sector general hospital of Karachi.

The names of the people who have been killed are: Dr Jaffer Abbas, deputy medical superintendent; Dr Javed Ahmed Khan, RMO general; Dr Karim Qureshi, assistant professor; Dr Anwar-us-Salam, professor of ENT; Dr Zafar Iqbal William, MLO; and Dr Sarfraz Ali Shah, ENT consultant. A health coordinator, Iqbal Memon, and a driver of an MS have also been killed.

Dr Anjum Khurshid, the MS whose driver was killed, became so disheartened that he left the country for good. Today, he practises Medicine in the UK.

Syed Khalid Hussein, a senior doctor, was slapped by a politician for turning up late in an emergency, according to sources. He, too, headed for the western countries soon after the ugly incident.

Recently, a DS, Dr Mohammad Khalid, was manhandled on its premises. Two or three officials regularly get threats.

The situation obtaining in the hospital is so bad that despite numerous advertisements for senior positions, the institution has failed to attract reputable people, according to some sources.

Two government officials told Dawn on Wednesday that until this problem was resolved, the hospital could not be revived. “If the administration does not find a solution to this serious problem soon, the hospital will have to be closed down,” said one of them.

The other official said Abbasi Shaheed Hospital was viewed as a liability by the city government. Not so long ago, a proposal had been moved for shifting the hospital’s control to the provincial level, he said.

However, according to him, the idea was dropped after some officials working for the hospital persuaded the city Nazim to retain its control.

Some 55 doctors of the 1993 batch had been inducted in the hospital. Today, less than 50 per cent of these people continue to work there. “The Civil hospital and Jinnah hospital do not shed staff. This hospital does.”

The hospital’s departments which are deficient in senior doctors are: anaesthesia and intensive care unit, medicine, radiology, cardiology, orthopaedic, paediatrics, pathology and neurosurgery.

He said because of some deficiencies, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan had de-recognized the hospital’s department of anaesthesia. This in turn has created numerous problems for the hospital.

The MS of the hospital, Prof Masood Javed, somehow manages to keep the department of neurosurgery afloat, said the officials. However, only elective surgeries are undertaken by him because running the department seven days a week is not really possible under the given circumstances.

What complicated the problems facing the hospital’s administration, the two officials said, was the lack of interest in the institution’s wellbeing among philanthropists and non-governmental organizations.

They said the tension-ridden atmosphere was the main reason behind this. Not so long ago, a few people had tried to provide some equipment and surgical items to the institution free of charge. But in their next visits, they were systematically discouraged from doing so. As a result, the would-be donors never came back.

Some of the positions that remain vacant in the hospital are: assistant medical superintendents (2), consultants (10), associate consultants (8), resident medical officers (66), staff nurses (47) and security guards (20).