Who will run Public Hospitals in Islambad?Civil Doctors or Pak Army Medical Corps officers

The Pakistan Medical Association’s (PMA) Islamabad chapter has termed the appointment of serving military officials as executive directors of Pims and Polyclinic a conspiracy to create differences between civil society and military establishment.

The controversy erupted after the health ministry sent a letter to the defence ministry stated that the posts of the executive director in Pims and Polyclinic were vacant due to the non-availability of eligible officers from the feeding cadre for promotion to the ED. It stated that because of the “importance it cannot be left out to function without qualified heads of the institutions”.

“In order to ensure effective health care service delivery for the public at large in ICT, it has been desired to fill the posts on secondment basis from Pakistan Army Medical Corps as an interim arrangement,” it added.

Responding to the letter, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Islamabad office-bearers Mian Rasheed, Dr Riaz Shahbaz Janjua, Dr Muhammad Ajmal, Dr Abid Saeed, Dr Umer Farooq, Dr Rana Farooq and others warned the health ministry that the appointment of military officials in lieu of federal government officials was not acceptable at any cost.

A Pims senior doctor(anonymously) claimed that army officers were being appointed in most institutions across the country under the pretext of corruption.

“I don’t want to comment about how the institutions, headed by the officers of armed forces, are being run. [I] just want to say that there are competent people in the health sector who can be appointed as executive directors.”

“If there is no competent person in [these] hospitals, the ministry could have hired a civilian. Unfortunately, the officers of armed forces only focus on time-in and time-out and do not care about the quality of work,” he said. “They don’t analyse how many operations a doctor does every day,” he complained.

“We are already facing a shortage of human resources and I fear that many doctors will quit…as they are highly qualified and have options to work within the country and outside the country,” he added.