Patients at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), one of the biggest hospitals of the country, have complained that doctors are not paying any attention to them because of mismanagement. During a survey, Business Recorder talked to many patients, their attendants and doctors about the deteriorating condition of the hospital.
Most of the patients at the Out-Door Patients (OPD) Department complained that senior doctors including professors, associate professors and assistant professors do not take any interest in providing medical consultation to the poor patients.
A senior official of the hospital said that the head of the institute should be an administrator by profession, while doctors at PIMS are not allowing any competent person to become executive director or hold any other senior position at the hospital. In the event that the government takes such a decision, they start agitation. Citing an example in this regard, he said in 2009, doctors started protest on the appointment of Dr Naeem Khan Tareen as head of the hospital's cardiac centre. They said that appointment at the senior positions in the hospital is the right of the faculty members and government should not appoint 'outsiders' against these.
The biggest hospital of the twin cities where thousands of poor patients come for medical treatment is in a pathetic condition as senior doctors at the OPD, orthopaedic, neurology departments, gynaecology ward and oncology department remain absent. The hospital needs special attention of the concerned authorities, said Waseem Raja. Daily, over 2,000 patients visit the hospital. Those patients waiting for treatment deplored the fact that the senior doctors are not available for them and only junior medical officers are present in the OPD of the hospital. A patient Shaheen said that she was visiting the hospital for the second time in a week to get check-up from orthopaedic surgeon Dr Akhtar Ali, but the surgeon was not available. She alleged that the staff of the orthopaedic surgeon advised her to visit doctor's private clinic where he sits in the evening.
Commenting on the situation, one of the employees said that the condition of the hospital is worsening with every passing day due to the 'politics' of the doctors and most of the doctors are using the hospital to refer patients to visit their private clinics for treatment. Khursheed Ahmed a heart patient from Murree said, "I was advised by a staff member of the cardiology department to visit private clinic of the specialist but being a poor man, I am unable to bear the cost of such treatment."
The total number of employees working at PIMS is nearly 5,000, which includes executive director, consultants, specialists and medical, non-medical officers, nurses and paramedics. The hospital started providing health facilities to the patients in 1987 with the main objective to provide medical facilities to the residents of twin cities of Rawalpindi/Islamabad. The hospital is a National Referral Hospital (NRH) for Northern Areas, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern area of Punjab. Another objective of the facility was to act as a focal point for research activities in health services.
The hospital can entertain nearly 1,000 in-door patients and has 22 medical and surgical specialists. Moreover, 230-bedded children's hospital is also a part of it, which was to be built with the support of the government of Japan through JICA. The government has equipped all departments of the hospital with state of the art facilities.
It has it's own excellent diagnostic facilities ie radiology, pathology, blood bank, angiography, scanning, stress electrocardiography, EMG and nerve contraction, bronchoscopy, endoscopy and GI procedure. The hospital has a fully equipped accident and emergency centre, intensive care unit (ICU), coronary care unit (CCU), operation theatre (OT) and private wards with the most modern and necessary facilities. It also has a dialysis unit for nephrology patients and a head injury unit at the neurosurgery department.
Business Recorder time and again tried to get the official version of the conditions of the hospital from Dr Mahmood Jamal, Executive Director PIMS, but his cell did not respond, while his landline was not attended by anyone for over three days.
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