KARACHI: Daily business at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), from its outpatient department (OPD) to crucial surgeries and post-operation check-ups of patients to regular medical procedures, came to a complete halt on Monday due to a strike called by health workers who even closed the main gates of the facility refusing entry to hundreds of patients, their families and attendants.

After some struggle from senior doctors and the management, the emergency unit of the NICVD was opened for patients but overall services remained suspended throughout the day.

The protesting employees warned that their agitation would remain continue until their demands were not met by the management and the Sindh government.

Such a protest from NICVD workers came for the second time as only last month they had boycotted hospital services and observed a strike in favour of their demands.

Work at the major heart hospital comes to a grinding halt as protesters shut OPDs, main gates

Carrying placards and chanting slogans, scores of NICVD workers converged at the main lawns of the facility and blocked the exit and entry points to the hospital.

A large number of patients and their relatives were forcibly returned without getting any treatment or seeing their doctors amid strong resistance from the protesters, who were demanding release of their health risk allowance and professional health allowance that had been withheld for the past one year.

The protest turned stronger when Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh visited the protesting workers and supported their demand.

He alleged that the NICVD administration had been patronising political activism in one of the key health facilities of the province, blaming its top management for “running a corruption racket” through its health system where it had placed key men of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to “supervise misappropriation of funds and transfer the money to top leadership”.

“Here the poor workers and real life heroes of the NICVD are protesting for their due rights and on other hand, the management of this hospital is plundering the exchequer,” he said while talking to reporters after attending the protest.

“Some Rs7 billion out of the annual budget of Rs12bn has been embezzled as the PPP’s Sindh government has turned NICVD into a hotbed of corruption and its executive director Dr Nadeem Qamar is actually patron of all the thieves,” he alleged

He claimed that the monthly remuneration of the NICVD executive director was more than Rs6 million and he had received Rs256m in the last three years.

He said other directors of the hospital were getting lucrative monthly allowances but workers were being denied health risk, utility and other allowances as well as arrears.

Later, the NICVD released a statement denying all the allegations levelled by the opposition leader.

It asked him to avoid making “false accusation just to tarnish the image of the Sindh government”.

Such allegations, it said, disappointed hundreds of thousands of those patients in the country who were served by the NICVD free of cost.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2022