KARACHI, Sept 17: Doctors and staff of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre demanded on Saturday an impartial and judicial inquiry into the last week deaths of four patients on ventilators, saying that the incident could have been averted had the government provided funds for purchase of fuel for major standby generators to the hospital on time.

The steering committee formed to save the devolved national medical institution — the JPMC, the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and the National Institute of Child Health — said in a statement that the inquiry committee formed by the provincial health department to probe into the four deaths was not up to the mark.

It said that not only the composition of the inquiry team in question was controversial but the terms of reference set for the probe were also nothing less than a crude attempt to save those who failed to provide funds to purchase diesel despite repeated requests from the JPMC.

It said that without changes in the structure of the inquiry team and terms and conditions, any report furnished by it would be unacceptable to the hospital staffs.

“Two members of the team are immediate subordinates of the man who could be held responsible for the unfortunate incident of Sept 13 and they cannot be fair,” the statement added.

The tragic deaths and all associated problems being faced by the JPMC were results of unconstitutional, unplanned devolution without taking the stakeholders into confidence or sorting out the financial problems of the recently devolved institution.

The committee further said that the terms and conditions of the inquiry into the four deaths must include a mandate to find the reasons for non-availability of funds to purchase diesel for generators and fix the responsibility.

The steering committee demanded that the composition of the inquiry team be modified to include experts from the relevant field including persons having experience of neurosurgery and the “biased subordinate officers” should be removed from the team to arrive at a fair and just conclusion.

The joint committee would decide about its future course of actions to save the three former federal government institutions in the city on Sept 19.

The committee members also appealed to the chief minister to immediately remove the provincial health secretary as according to them his illegal actions might soon end up in complete closure of the three major hospitals.