LAHORE, Aug 9: The Punjab government has unilaterally decided to shift Punjab's only Postgraduate Medical Institute from its existing campus to its attached teaching hospital.
While the attached Lahore General Hospital is already brimful of capacity. The PGMI administration seems disturbed over the decision, as it claims that it was not even consulted before taking the decision.
The Punjab chief minister had issued a directive that the premises of PGMI on 6-Birdwood Road may immediately be handed over to the Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS). The CM also said that the PGMI should be shifted to the Lahore General Hospital as decided earlier.
The CM had also directed that the auditorium situated in the Services Hospital should also be handed over to the SIMS. In the meantime, it is learnt, Punjab health secretary Sohail Ahmad has also directed the PGMI administration to implement CM's orders at the earliest.
Sources in the PGMI claimed that no decision about the shifting of the PGMI had ever taken earlier. They said the government had, on the other hand, decided to construct a new building for SIMS on the campus of its attached Services Hospital.
When contacted, SIMS project director Prof Dr Saeed Khokhar said a piece of 40 kanals land had been identified on the Services Hospital campus. He said a PC-1 had also been prepared and being sent to the government for approval.
When asked that the government had decided to shift the PGMI from its campus, he said the SIMS had plans to establish hostels on the vacated campus. The sources in the PGMI also said that it would be impossible to shift the huge infrastructure of PGMI to the LGH, where not even a single room was available.
They said that a tension had created between the former PGMI/LGH BoM chairman and the principal only over the availability of one room. Similarly, they said, the hospital management was compelled to accommodate two patients on one bed owing to the shortage of space and beds.
They said the whole campus of the PGMI had two museums, laboratories, library, equipment and staff, which could never be shifted to the LGH. "The government has issued a directive to shift the PGMI to the LGH, but it did not tell where at the LGH," a senior PGMI official told Dawn. He also said that how such a big institution could be shifted overnight as the CM's directive say.
The official claimed that the whole infrastructure and even faculty of the PGMI was being used to run the SIMS and its immediate shifting would render the teaching at the SIMS stand still.
The sources claimed that the government was also considering to remove PGMI/LGH principal Prof Dr Ali Ajwad Shah to avoid a confrontation in the shifting of the institute.
Meanwhile, it is learnt, PGMI/LGH principal Prof Shah has called an emergency meeting of the board of management to discuss the latest situation. Health minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed and health secretary Sohail Ahmad were not available for comments.
