ISLAMABAD: A departmental head of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science (Pims) stunned a Senate committee on Wednesday with his candour, admitting that divisive politics rules Pims too.

“Our staff is divided in multiple ways,” said Dr Khaleeq-uz-Zaman, chairman of Pims’ management committee, briefing members of the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat on the affairs of the biggest public hospital of Islamabad.

His plain-talking began after Vice Chancellor Pims Dr Javed Akram had informed the senators that “there is a mafia in Pims and the management is trying to handle it”.

Dr Akram, who is the chief administrator of the teaching hospital, said he had started delegating powers to different departments and the chairperson of the committee, Sen. Kalsoom Parveen, asked Dr Zaman if that was for real.

“When I send an internal memo,” replied Dr Zaman, “I mention that the contents are being communicated with the consent of the vice chancellor but the recipient still feels obligated to confirm that.”

Then he launched his plain talk. He told the senators that there are too many groups in the Pims, each one trying to create hurdles for the others. And the ‘political groups” exist because there exist the entity of Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) in the hospital.

“There are groups in Pims divided on the lines of Muslim and Non-Muslim, Medical and Non-Medical and Nursing and Non-Nursing staff. There are even groups representing Punjabis, Sindhis and Pashtoons,” he said.

“They remain busy conspiring against each other due to which the work of the hospital suffers. Since the Executive Director used to be the only decision-maker in the past, all groups tried to get close to him,” he said.

In his opinion granting autonomy to all departments was the only way to make staff focus on their work. “Instead of everyone rushing to the top boss, heads of the departments and the nursing heads should have powers and petty cash to resolve the routine matters in their department,” he said.

By this time, Dr Zaman was quite worked up and tellingly observe that people attending official meetings seem to pay more attention to refreshments on the table rather than the issue on the table.

“I attended a meeting of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) held on a lunch table,” he recalled. “I have banned all refreshment from my meetings. Even here I have not taken tea or biscuits.”

“Refreshments make the mind fresh,” quipped Sen. Parveen as if to save embarrassment to the committee members who were having tea and biscuits.

Sen. Rubina Khalid agreed with her and shared her own deep thought. “I see no sense in a hospital having a CBA. Hospitals are beyond politics,” said the PPP senator.

Pims Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram put his own spin on the worrisome situation in his vast institution – now a shadow of the sparkling gift that it was in 1986 when Japan handed it to the federal government for the people of Pakistan.

Dr Akram said, “The problem is that the workload of the hospital has increased by 350 percent during the last five years but budget by only 17 per cent. Since 52 percent of the patients Pims treat come from provinces, we should be billing the provinces but (can’t because) after the 18th Amendment health has become provincial responsibility.”

Issue of Argentina Park Extension of Polyclinic to Argentina Park land, an issue hanging fire for long, also produced lively exchanges in the Senate Standing Committee meeting.

Approved in 2008, the Health Ministry thought it advisable to seek permission of the embassy Argentina to occupy one-third of the area of the park for the project and got it. But the Capital Development Authority refused citing the environmental laws which disallow using parklands for any other purpose.

Only the prime minister can relax that rule and request for the same has been lying with the PM Secretariat for some time.

Polyclinic is the second largest hospital of federal capital with 545 beds. Over 6,000 patients report to it daily. The planned five-storey bloc will add another 600 beds, almost equal to the capacity of Pims.

Minister of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), Barrister Usman Ibrahim, told the Senate committee said that go-ahead signal would be sought at the next meeting of the federal cabinet.

Sen Kalsoom, however, thought the CDA was trying to delay the project ‘because it is related to public welfare”.

“There are also some doctors who don’t want the project to be completed,” she said.

CDA’s Member Planning Waseem Ahmed observed that Islamabad’s Master Plan does not allow constructions on parkland. That is why the CDA has to seek approval of federal cabinet for the Polyclinic project.

Sen Kalsoom pointedly reminded him that CDA did not raise such objections in the case of the Metro Bus Service project in Islamabad.

Finally, the Senate committee advised the minister CADD to get the federal cabinet approve the hospital extension project “as early as possible”.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2014