HYDERABAD, Feb 26: Sindh Health Minister Shabbir Ahmad Qaimkhani has said the chief minister has cancelled results of a test for selection of doctors after receiving complaints about irregularities in the examinations conducted by the Sindh Public Service Commission.

He said that after cancelling the results, the chief minister had decided to appoint doctors on contract basis. He said the doctors would be posted in rural areas where health facilities, including basic health units and rural health centres, were without medical personnel.

He was responding to questions of journalists on Saturday night after enquiring after the health of Shahzadi, a women who was operated upon for removal of scissors left in her abdomen last year during delivery at the Hyderabad Civil Hospital. Sindh health secretary Prof (Dr) Naushad Shaikh, hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Khalid Qureshi, District Naib Nazim Zafar Ali Rajput and other officials were also present.

The minister said he had come to see the condition of the woman who had been reported dead in a newspaper, prompting him to order an inquiry by a senior health official into the matter. “Still, the inquiry will be conducted and the report will be submitted to him hopefully by Monday. Responsibility will be fixed as to who was responsible for the negligence to leave a surgical instrument inside the woman’s abdomen after surgery,” he said.

He said officials responsible would be punished. He, however, clarified that no one had so far been removed from service but action would certainly be taken in the matter. “Let the facts come to the fore,” he said.

When he was told it was yet another incident of hospital staff negligence and no one had been taken to task, he said doctors did not kill people deliberately but element of mistake or irresponsibility was there. He referred to the death of his mother in a private hospital during mishandling of the case and said he had pardoned the doctors because he believed that they had not done anything intentionally.

The hospital’s medical superintendent had appointed a committee, headed by Dr Sattar Memon, to investigate who was responsible for leaving the instrument in the woman’s belly. Dr Shaista Arain, Dr Jan Mohammad Shaikh and Dr Saleem Raza Memon are other members of the committee.

The committee has completed its preliminary findings and will submit a report to the medical superintendent which will then be forwarded to the health minister and the health secretary.