ISLAMABAD: A committee tasked to look into the worrying affairs of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) has suggested wide-ranging changes in running the city’s largest government hospital.

Appointed by the Wafaqi Mohtasib, or Federal Ombudsman, in February in response to public complaints about Pims, the six-member committee’s recommendations range from introducing a unified control system, under a management board chaired by the President of Pakistan, to ban strikes by the hospital staff.

Committee member Imtiaz Inayat Elahi told Dawn that the Wafaqi Mohtasib has the authority to implement the recommendations but the committee has also sent its report to the President of Pakistan, who is Chancellor of the Pims teaching hospital, and “so it will be implemented”.

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“It is a landmark report, at the initiative of Wafaqi Mohtasib Salman M. Faruqui, and will resolve most of the health issues as all stakeholders were consulted including public, chambers, doctors etc,” he said.

Vice Chancellor Pims Dr Javed Akram, whose efforts to improve the affairs in the hospital the committee has praised, said that his team was studying the comprehensive report.

“We will take it to the statutory body and it will be implemented in the best interests of patients and staff,” he added.

As gleaned by Dawn, the report suggests that the leader of opposition in the Senate, eminent doctors and philanthropist should also be included in the proposed management board under the President of Pakistan, and that Chief Finance Officer and administrator should be appointed in the Pims hospital, which should be notified as an essential service in order to ban strikes by the staff.

At the same time the report notes that no rules and regulations exist to define jobs description, roles and responsibilities, and recommended to either separate the university from the hospital or the terms and conditions of those employees, who have opted for employment with the university, should clearly be spelled out by framing necessary rules and regulations.

As for funding the hospital, the report says the funds should be in line with the workload.

It notes that Pims’ buildings, infrastructure and equipment have become old and need to be replaced. It recommended building the multi-storeyed Pims Tower whose foundation stone was laid by former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz a decade ago.

During the inquiry, the committee members learnt that almost a dozen unions exist in Pims. Majority of them are not registered.

They also suggested filling vacant posts, introducing biometric identification system for the staff, establishing an endowment and social welfare fund and a dental hospital.

They also called for creating quality assurance department, modern pharmacy, an inn for visiting relatives of patients and enhancing the present OPD slip fee of Rs5.

They suggested that pathology and radiology services should be outsourced and complete the project of replacing the telephone exchange and network as soon as possible.

To enhance the efficiency of Pims, the committee members suggested that all new recruitments should carry the condition that doctors/staff will not do private practice throughout their association with Pims. They found as many as 25 labs flourishing around Pims because doctors and staff say that the tests in the Pims labs are not reliable.

“It is suggested to outsource the labs of Pims and give share to doctors and staff from income,” the report says.

It also suggested outsourcing such hospital services as laundry, catering, cleaning and sweeping etc.

Observing that incidents of theft, kidnapping and murder and even abduction of newborn have taken place in the hospital, which is spread on 140 acres, the report calls for special security audit in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior and inducting reliable and efficient private security service.

Although established for the residents of Islamabad, patients from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir, Fata and even Afghanistan visit Pims in large numbers. Therefore, the inquiry committee recommended establishing four 500-bed hospitals in the four corners of Islamabad by 2018.

It is also recommended to provide primary and secondary health facilities in the dispensaries of Polyclinic which has 36 dispensaries in different areas of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Moreover it is suggested to expand Polyclinic.

It also suggests improving nursing care training, general cleanliness and housekeeping, waste disposal management system and the mortuaries and make liver transplant surgery centre of Pims functional.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2015

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