ISLAMABAD: Outpatient departments (OPD) at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) may be open to patients after 11am on Wednesday after the Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) on Tuesday assured employees of the hospital their demand will be met.

Talking to Dawn, CADD secretary Nargis Ghaloo said the employees had met with CADD Minister Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry on Tuesday and that during the meeting, they were told the ministry is doing everything to address their issues and that they should resume services to patients.

“I am quite hopeful that, after a token strike, employees will open OPDs after 11am on Wednesday and patients will get proper treatment,” she said.

Spokesperson Pims Employees Association Dr Asfandyar Khan told Dawn that the CADD minister had assured employees the issue will be addressed and that it has therefore been decided that the OPDs will be open after 11am on Wednesday.

“I will sit in the OPD to convince employees they should continue to work because a large number of employees are not in favour of resuming duties. Hopefully, over 1,500 patients will be registered on Wednesday,” he said.

CADD minister assures the striking employees their demands will be met, asks them to resume services

When asked, Pims Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram said many of the hospital’s departments were not functioning due to the strike.

“I appeal to all stakeholders to address the issue as the patients are suffering. The demand of the protestors is genuine because the university’s act says employees will remain civil servants but they have now been deprived of government accommodation, plots and other benefits,” he said.

“The university syndicate passed a resolution in Oct 2016 that the hospital will be separated from the university. I suggest that through a notification, the hospital on Schedule-III, which will declare the hospital a government entity and after that, the process of legislation should be expedited,” he said.

Laboratories at Pims on Tuesday only conducted 500 tests when 5,000 are conducted on a normal day.

Due to the protest which started the Monday before last, the OPDs have remained closed, hundreds of operations were postponed and thousands of patients have been turned back.

Head of the pathology department, Dr Ashok Kumar told Dawn that between 5,000 and 7,000 tests are conducted on a normal day and that only 500 were done on Tuesday.

“Most of the samples for tests were taken during the night when patients in the emergency department were told to get them done. I hope the employees’ demand is accepted soon so the hospital starts functioning as per routine,” he said.

OPD Director Dr Muthair Shah told Dawn the OPDs in the main hospital, children hospital, mother and child hospital and the burn centre etc remained closed on Tuesday.

“We get over 4,000 patients in the main OPD on a normal day,” he said, adding that patients will benefit if the protestors’ demands are met as treatment costs will not increase if the hospital becomes a government entity,” he said.

Pims employees have been demanding that the hospital be separated from the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto University and for eight days, all OPDs and labs have been closed and more than 200 operations a day are postponed.

A welfare hospital before, Pims became an affiliated hospital of the university in 2013 and the status of its employees, who were civil servants, was gradually changed and they have been offered to become employees of the university. Quotas for their children in appointments and various courses are being withdrawn.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2017