KARACHI: A crisis seems to be brewing yet again after a decade at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), the largest tertiary care public sector hospital in the province, where doctors on Monday announced that they would start a two-hour token strike from Feb 13 (Thursday) if the federal government did not hold meaningful negotiations with them within 48 hours.

A press conference was organised by the Joint Action Committee, which included representatives of JPMC faculty, Young Doctors’ Association (YDA), the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (Pima) and the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA).

The event’s objective was to highlight fears and concerns of the doctors as the federal government was in the process of implementing a Supreme Court order to take over the administrative and financial control of the JPMC, National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and National Institute of Child Health.

“Our sole demand is that the government appreciates the hard work and hardship of the faculty, junior doctors and the staff of JPMC over the last 10 years’ of status quo (ordered by the court) and work to secure their future,” said Dr Iqbal Afridi, dean of medicine at the Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU) and senior psychiatrist at JPMC.

The federal govt is asked to hold talks with doctors before taking over NICH, JPMC and NICVD

The JPMC staff was the main stakeholders in this matter and any unilateral decision might have severe undesired repercussions, he added.

Dr Sameer Qureshi, a senior ENT specialist at the JPMC and professor at the JSMU, said the JPMC staff first suffered when the then government took the decision of its devolution in 2011 without taking relevant stakeholders on board.

Recalling how the staff suffered over the past nine years which saw doctors’ strikes severely affecting patient services and later a long period of maintaining status quo on court orders, he said that the faculty kept on depleting on account of retirement of senior members and non-induction of new ones.

“A time came when only four to five departments were left with a professor and most departments were run by assistant professors or medical officers acting as in charge of departments. Most of the departments were almost at the verge of de-recognition for postgraduate training due to depleted faculty,” he explained.

The Sindh government’s decision to set up JSMU, however, infused new life into the JPMC.

“In 2016, the government hired university’s faculty from the JPMC through a selection process and JPMC again became a well faculty-studded institute that it had been,” he said, adding that at the junior level there was still severe doctors’ shortage.

“We have been going through uncertainty for the last nine years. We are professionals and want to work irrespective of the government but you need to safeguard our rights. We would request the federal government to continue from where we are rather than from where we were for the smooth running of the institute,” he said.

Dr Sughra Parveen, the dean of surgery at JSMU, said the JPMC had earned many prestigious honours and medals over the years and that’s all because of its staff and the government should acknowledge their services by taking them on board on this matter.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2020