August 16, 2008	Saturday	Sha'aban 13, 1429

KARACHI, Aug 15: Nurses and other paramedical staff at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), the biggest tertiary-care hospital of the country, boycotted their routine assignments for hours in protest against certain notifications issued by the federal health ministry.

Sources at the hospital said that groups of protesting employees gathered in front of the executive director’s office around 8am on Friday, chanted slogans and put up banners against the notifications, pertaining to the transfer and posting of two senior doctors, Dr Srichand and Dr Seemi Jamali.

The OPDs that cater to the consultancy and treatment needs of about 2,000 patients every day presented a deserted look. Patients and their attendants had to return home as the paramedical staff took to the streets within the hospital premises to press their demand for the withdrawal of the notifications, said a source, adding that routine working at many of wards also remained suspended for some time.

When contacted, the JPMC Executive Director, Dr Shoaib Memon Mir, told Dawn that things normalised in the afternoon after negotiations between the administration and representatives of the protesting staff. He hoped that OPDs would resume as usual from Saturday. The emergency and casualty sections, besides other wards, performed normally during the day, he added.

In reply to a question, he said that since the health ministry through the latest notifications had required keeping the two doctors, who were transferred from PIMS and asked to report at the JPMC, at his (Dr Mir) disposal, it was now his outlook to study the situation afresh and decide about Dr Jamali and Dr SriChand’s assignments.

Meanwhile, the All Sindh People’s Paramedical Staff Welfare Association has said that nearly all doctors and paramedic of the JPMC joined in the protest and observed a complete strike as Dr Seemi Jamali (previously the deputy executive director) was to join the JPMC.

Another source said that Dr Jamali, considered to be a tough personality handling nurses, reported back to the JPMC executive director on Friday after serving at the PIMS for about two weeks. She has also been sanctioned a two-week long leave as well.

In the case of Dr Srichand, it was said that since he had not joined the PIMS at all due to some family problem, now the JPMC administration was a little confused. “Should the doctor be taken as a case transferred from PIMS or a doctor who never left JPMC?” the source questioned.