KARACHI, May 24: The board of governors of the Civil Hospital and Lyari General Hospital have voted for deployment of Rangers at both hospitals to avert manhandling of doctors and other medical staff on duty by angry mobs.

A source privy to the second meeting of the BOG held on Tuesday said that BOG members were told that people accompanying severely injured patients or dead bodies, brought to hospitals in emergencies after any bomb blast or major accident, behaved harshly and sometimes did not refrain from slapping or causing injuries to the medical staff available at the accident and emergency centres.

Since the police present at hospitals usually prove ineffective in handling any emergency situation, there is an urgent need for a round-the-clock deployment of Rangers at the emergency centres and main entries of both hospitals, the meeting noted.

It resolved that authorities concerned should be pursued for deployment of Rangers.

The board, which met with its chairman, Abu Shamim Arif, in the chair, also decided to recruit security guards for the CHK and the LGH against some existing vacancies on contract basis, at the earliest.

It was further decided that the endoscopy facility, which was spread over different departments of the CHK for patients, would be centralized.

Besides, different committees would be formed for identifying new projects and recruitment of staff, with the Vice-Chancellor of the DUHS as one of its members.

The Medical Superintendent of the CHK, Dr Kaleem Butt, told Dawn that the BOG had also called for establishment of a medical ICU in the CHK.

The proposed centre, first of its kind at the CHK, would comprise 13 beds and would be equipped with the latest ventilators and monitors as well.

He said that the medical ICU would be established at the present sites of the OT-1, which will cease to function as soon as the new OT complex started functioning.

The existing OT-2 site would be utilised for establishment of a state-of-the-art pathological laboratory, he added.