BAHAWALPUR: Inauguration of the a Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at the Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) has been put on hold owing to halted recruitment of over 650 people, including medics and paramedical staff, by the health department.

This was stated by BVH Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Quaid-i-Azam Medical College (QAMC) Principal Prof Dr Javed Iqbal here on Monday.

He told Dawn that last month the health department was making efforts to fill about 652 vacancies for the CCU. But under orders of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the recruitment process hit a snag. He hoped that with the Punjab government taking up the matter with the ECP, the recruitment process could be resumed soon.

He further said all equipment had been installed in the CCU and angiography started. The college administration installed five water filtration plants within the hospital costing about Rs2.5 million with its own resources, he added.

Dr Iqbal said the constitution of a board of management for QAMC, BVH and three other local health facilities was on the anvil at government level. The tenure of the previous board ended in February and since then the local health facilities were without a board to run their affairs. The health department had set up a committee to run the administrative affairs of the five health facilities, including government civil hospital on Jhangiwali road, a government hospital for women and government public health nursing school.

He further said that the health department had submitted a summary to the chief minister for the constitution of a board consisting of 19 members from various walks of life. He refused to share names of the recommended board members and said he expected the chief minister to make an announcement soon.

Regarding the demonstration of former sanitary employees, who have now been engaged by the waste management contractor, the hospital chief claimed that these workers were against the outsourcing of the BVH waste management and did not want to serve.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2018