May 12, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 6, 1429

KARACHI, May 11: The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre has directed a non- governmental organisation running the National Epilepsy Centre situated on its premises to stop examining patients at the NEC, it has been learnt. Sources said that after getting the directive, the staff of the NGO, Neurology Research and Patient Welfare Fund, had started examining their patients in another JPMC ward while the JPMC doctors had begun to examine patients at the NEC.

The sources said the NGO, led by well-known neurologist Prof Hasan Aziz, had raised funds, established the NEC and had been operating it under an MoU signed between it and the JPMC.

After the JPMC directive, which allows the NGO to carry out its outreach activities from the premises, a legal notice was served on it by the NGO calling for settling the issue through arbitration.

When this reporter visited the NEC building on Saturday afternoon, he saw that though the ground floor had been completed and was operational, its upper two floors were still under construction. The construction had been carried out without getting mandatory approval from the Karachi Building Control Authority as the NGO maintained that it was not required as the JPMC was a federal government organization.

Responding to queries, JPMC chief Prof Rashid Jooma said the JPMC believed that the project was complete and had been functioning for over a year, so under the MoU the JPMC was taking over it. He also had reservations about the project and said that outsiders were examining patients in the NEC, which was not allowed. He, however, said he had asked the outsiders to apply to the JPMC, and after examining the requests it would decide on a case-to-case basis on merit and those qualifying could be allowed to work.

He said that another reservation was about the collection of various charges from the patients by the NEC. Now only the JPMC staff would collect the fees etc. He said the NEC charges were relatively higher than the charges collected by the other JPMC departments. He alleged that the NEC had a commercial angle also and it was being used by Prof Aziz and his colleagues to screen out and get private patients from people visiting it. He said if Dr Aziz really wanted to serve the poor, he could start examining the patients free at his private clinic, where he charged about Rs2,000 per patient.

He said a vast majority of government hospital doctors — himself included — were working in other hospitals or running private practice, which created a conflict of interests and these doctors did not devote themselves to government hospitals, where they merely showed up to select patients for their private practice. Unless this was stopped by the government by offering better wages to the doctors, the public health system in the country could not be improved.

Dr Jooma said Prof Aziz made several complaints against him to almost everybody who mattered, including the president and the federal health minister, but when these authorities were shown the complete picture of the issue, the complaints were dismissed.

Responding to Dawn queries, NGO chief Prof Hassan Aziz said that under the MoU the NGO had to establish the NEC and operate it for one year, after which the NEC would be handed over to the JPMC. He said though the NEC had started its operations since October / November 2007 partially, the entire project was not yet complete, and after the completion of the project and after the passage of one year of operation, the centre would be handed over to the JPMC.

A former professor of the JPMC, who had worked with it for over three decades before retiring almost a decade back, said that since May 8 the NGO staff had stopped examining patients in the NEC and were now examining them in the JPMC’s Medical Ward 6 (Medicine and Endocrine Foundation). He accused the JPMC chief of waging some personal vendetta and said that soon after taking over the JPMC reins last year, he had started interfering with NEC work.

He said he was a colleague of the elder Prof Jooma, father of Rashid Jooma, and had known the family for over four decades. He said Rashid Jooma was a classmate of his (Prof Aziz’s) wife, and they along with other colleagues used to come to his hospital ward during their studies. He added that he was at a loss to understand why the JPMC chief had become his bitter opponent.

Prof Aziz said the NGO had spent almost Rs50 million on the NEC and almost that much amount was to be spent on it till its completion. There were over 1.6 million epilepsy patients in the country. Only around 150,000 took medicines while over 1.45 million were yet to be approached. The disease was incurable, but it could be controlled and managed with regular medication.

He said there were 56 epilepsy centres in the country – 29 of them in the city. Over 1,400 doctors had been trained by the NGO in epilepsy treatment. He said the NEC charged Rs60 from a patient for a month’s medicines – that otherwise cost around Rs900. The charges were almost similar, or even less than the charges of some other JPMC departments.

Prof Aziz said the JPMC wanted to use the NEC for patients of diseases other than epilepsy, but as the NEC was a purpose-built clinic established with funds for specific purposes, it was not possible and the NGO had resisted the move, which might have angered the JPMC chief.