ISLAMABAD: With lapse of the Medical Teaching Institution (MTI) Ordinance, which failed to sail through the parliament, staff of the hospital on Wednesday decided to call off the strike after negotiations with the national health services (NHS) ministry.

As a result, the out-patient departments (OPDs) and vaccination centres will resume service on Thursday (today).

The board of governors (BoG) of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) has stopped working and the nameplate of director hospital has been replaced with the one stating joint executive director (JED).

It is worth mentioning that in November 2020, President Dr Arif Alvi had promulgated the MTI Ordinance. According to initial draft of the ordinance, the BoG would deal with all affairs of Pims once it became an MTI, members would be appointed and notified by the ministry on the recommendation of a search and nomination council and the BoG would take charge of overall superintendence and control of functions of the hospital with the power to appoint deans, hospital director, medical director, nursing director and finance director.

The ordinance was passed and extended by the National Assembly but on June 28, the Senate Standing Committee on NHS rejected the MTI bill, with two votes in favour and five against it. Later it could not sail through the upper house and lapsed on July 13.

An official of Pims, requesting not to be named, said the BoG had stopped working and since July 12, its chairman, Khuwaja Saeed Saleem, did not sign any document.

“However unfortunately, the ministry did not officially intimate that it has taken control of the hospital. In the past, when former ED Dr Anser Maxsood retired, the post remained vacant for around two weeks and the ministry did not bother to communicate this. Now once again, this is the same situation,” he said.

“We believe that the ministry will intervene and address the issues of the hospital; there were a number of air-conditioners installed in the hospital by pharmaceutical companies, but they were removed and disappeared during the tenure of BoG.

“The ministry should try to recover those air-conditioners as patients have been suffering,” he said.

Spokesperson for Pims Grand Health Alliance (GHA) Dr Haider Abbasi, while talking to Dawn, said the employees was jubilant that the ordinance had lapsed.

“Moreover, the nameplate of hospital director, which was under BoG, was removed from outside the office of Dr Minhajus Siraj and a nameplate stating joint executive director was put up,” he said.

Healthcare workers call off strike

While OPDs and vaccination centres remained closed for the last three days across the city, people suffered as they were getting auto generated messages that they should go to vaccination centres for inoculation but had to return disappointed due to the strike.

GHA Chairman Dr Asfandyar Khan said on Wednesday healthcare workers had a meeting with Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan wherein it was decided that healthcare workers (HCWs) will call off the strike and the ministry will ensure that all HCWs get the health risk allowance.

It is worth mentioning that HCWs were demanding Covid-19 related health risk allowance which had not been paid since the last one year.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2021