LAHORE: The Mayo Hospital has sent a complaint against its 35 doctors to the Punjab health department seeking action against them over their refusal to attend to Covid-19 patients.

The action was proposed against the medics of the neurology and the dermatology departments of the hospital. Among them are senior registrars, registrars, medical officers, principal medical officers, postgraduate trainees and house officers. The teaching institute had issued a notification directing them to perform duties when the number of critical patients of Covid-19 at the hospital increased to 110.

The hospital administration has primarily blamed the heads of the two departments for refusing to send their juniors at the time of an emergency. The neurology department is being headed by Prof Dr Ahsan Nauman and dermatology department by Prof Dr Tahir Jamil.

Tuesday was the ninth day that the 35 doctors did not join their duties in medical units (Covid-19 wards), a senior official told Dawn. He said the teaching hospital also launched an inquiry into the wilful absence of these doctors declaring it “criminal negligence” and violation of their ethical and professional obligations.

The medics of Lahore hospital’s neurology and dermatology depts were asked to perform duty in medical wards

The inquiry officers have been directed to collect details of the patients admitted during the nine days so that action may be taken against these medics in case of death or mishandling of any patient during the absence period of the doctors.

As the number of critical patients increased manifold in the Mayo Hospital, the administration sought help from heads of all medical specialties and ENT departments to dispatch their medics to save the patients’ lives. The departments included nephrology, cardiology and neurology, the official said, adding that the senior faculty members of the medical units had requested the institute to engage services of doctors of these units during the crisis.

Meanwhile, the administration also prepared a roster of the doctors of these departments and sent it to their heads to ensure implementation by sending their juniors to the high dependency units (HDUs) and the intensive care units (ICUs). He said that the heads of all the units followed the request except the two departments.

While refusing to send their junior medics to the ICUs and HDUs for treatment of critical patients, the two professors took the position that the prime responsibility of their departments was to serve patients at their respective units only.

Prof Nauman used “tough and rough words” in a letter written to Chief Executive of the hospital Prof Dr Asad Aslam. Prof Nauman termed the letters/notifications written to heads of the departments of the hospital by the administration harassment and cause of mental stress.

“The current notification does not fulfil the legal requirements as it is causing a lot of harassment to doctors resulting in mental stress,” Prof Nauman wrote. He stated that this notification/decision of the institute’s management was disturbing the primary/core responsibilities of the neurology department. He asked the chief executive of the hospital to exempt doctors of his department to let them perform duties at their own unit.

The chief executive confirmed the development saying that the cases had been sent to the health department against 35 junior medics of the two units. He said that it was a national emergency and the Mayo Hospital was the only one which was bearing burden of huge number of Covid-19 patties in Punjab.

During the last three weeks or so, the Mayo Hospital received a huge number of critical patients of Covid-19 and the available strength of the doctors was unable to address the influx, he said.

“We have 110 critical patients of the virus in the HDUs/ICUs of the Mayo Hospital and they are struggling for life and need 24/7 care,” Prof Asad said, adding that the institution had called medics of other units in these troubling times.

Answering a question, he said the doctors of the allied medical disciplines and ENT studied and worked on medical floors and they could better handle the serious Covid-19 patients as compared to those working in other departments like neurosurgery unit.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2020*