PIMS doctors reject transfer order to IHITC

Islamabad : The Young Doctors Association, the Young Consultants Association, and the All PIMS Employees Association convened an emergency meeting at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) here Friday to devise a strategy to resist the government’s decision to transfer a pool of human resource from the capital’s three key hospitals to the newly-established Isolation Hospital and Infection Treatment Centre (IHITC) for COVID-19 patients.

A June 17 notification of the Ministry of Health places the services of numerous personnel currently working at PIMS, NIRM, and Poly Clinic at the disposal of IHITC with immediate effect. The transferred human resource includes doctors, medical officers, charge nurses, technicians, administrative and finance officers, as well as drivers and storekeepers, among others.

“More than half of the health workers and staff at PIMS has contracted Coronavirus and is currently undergoing treatment. Under these circumstances, the government’s directive to transfer PIMS staff to IHITC is tantamount to closure of PIMS. If a new hospital had to be established, the government should have made arrangements to hire additional doctors, nurses, and staff for its operationalization,” the organizers of the meeting expressed, rejecting the notification.

The meeting also expressed concern over the non-availability of beds for Coronavirus-affected employees of PIMS and demanded that a separate ward be dedicated to the treatment of hospital staff. The participants regretted the delay in the release of risk allowance for frontline healthcare workers and criticized the government for failure to implement the increase in salaries of doctors approved by the PM and the Economic Coordination Council back in January 2020.

The organizers decided to converge again for a second meeting on June 23 to weigh various options which may include the holding of a protest, should the government ignore their demands.

It is common knowledge, however, that the terms and conditions governing appointments in government service clearly state that the appointee is “liable to be transferred anywhere and at any post under the federal government in or outside Pakistan and that he/she will be required to perform assigned duties from time to time.”

Given the ambit of government appointments and the Covid-19 emergency at hand, borrowing of essential resources—human and otherwise—is the need of the hour. Desperate times demand desperate measures. Owing to the nature of the health exigency in question, medics are expected to focus on saving lives and performing duties wherever assigned—be it PIMS or IHITC. A time certainly unfit for protests as that would mean gambling with human lives.