October 10, 2006	Tuesday	Ramazan 16, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 9: The Supreme Court on Monday gave marching orders to the entire team of doctors of the District Headquarters Hospital of Chakwal for protesting the arrest of a colleague on charges of medical negligence.

Police had arrested Dr Mohammad Amir after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of reports that three children died because of the alleged negligence.

“How could government doctors can go on strike,” observed Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry commenting on the three-day strike by the Chakwal doctors which left their patients at the mercy of God and reportedly caused some deaths.

Their three-day strike and protest demonstrations amounted to defying the orders of the apex court, he said.

Justice Chaudhry and Justice Mohammad Nawaz who form the bench hearing the case then ordered the Punjab government to transfer all the doctors of the District Hospital “and appoint in their place a new staff other than from Chakwal”.

The Supreme Court also annulled the orders of the Chakwal Civil Judge Tahir Khan to constitute a medical board to determine the allegations of medical negligence.

Dr Tauqir Minhas, Medical Superintendent of the Chakwal District Hospital, was directed by the bench to prepare a list of the doctors who went on strike.

While adjourning further proceedings in the case to the first week of November, the bench summoned the Punjab health secretary to appear in person and explain why he failed to check complaints of mismanagement in the hospitals in Chakwal.

It looked strange to the chief justice that the secretary took no action against the doctors who went on strike for three days.

Advocate Babar Awan, appearing as amicus curiae (friends of the court), presented a document to the court to show that the Punjab Medical and Health Institutions Act 2003 and certain rules framed by the provincial government contradicted each other.

On the one hand the act put a ban on private practice by government doctors since June 2006 but the rules allow them to inquire from patients whether they wanted treatment on public facility or to see them privately.

Babar Awan said since the government itself did not adhere to the laws it framed, the result was that doctors persuade the patients coming to government hospitals to visit them in their private clinics instead.

Even diagnostic equipment, like X-Rays etc, were “deliberately rendered non-functional” to force the patients to go to private laboratories, mostly owned by them.

The same is the position in pathology laboratories, he said adding that one out of every three hospital in Rawalpindi had non-functional diagnostic equipment.

Chief Justice Chaudhry deplored the practice, observing that doctors were bound to give proper advice to patients but here they were misguided for private profit.

During the hearing Dr Shaharyar told the court that he had tendered his resignation after witnessing what he called the negligent attitude of MS Dr Tauqir Minhas, DMS Dr Sayadat Ali and Dr Mohammad Amir.

Consequently these doctors were also summoned by the court while the secretary health was asked to say whether Dr Shaharyar’s resignation has been accepted or not.

Meanwhile the district police officer (DPO) informed the court that there was some discrepancy in the first information report (FIR) against Dr Amir but the same had been rectified and investigations were on.