In what would be a first, the federal health ministry looks intent to appoint two serving army officers as the heads of the two premier government hospitals in the federal capital.
As per reports, the health ministry is saying that the feeding cadre from which the posts of executive director for the two hospitals is to be drawn from, is short of qualified doctors. That seems like a bizarre claim, one that can be immediately verified by having a look at the rolls of the aforementioned cadre. But one doesn’t even need to go that far into the record room, or file an RTI for it. Because the ED post for both the hospitals is currently being held provisionally by the head of anaesthesiology at one of the two. At the very least, he could have been made permanent ED at one.
The Pakistan Medical Association’s Islamabad chapter has already warned the ministry against the imminent appointment at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and Polyclinic.
The move is wrong on a number of levels. First of all, is the principle of the matter. The feeding cadre should not be cheated out of such appointments; career doctors working in public health should be given a shot at running the hospitals they have served throughout their careers. More importantly – and this is not a comment on the competence of the Pakistan Army’s medical corps but could also apply to the medical branch of any army – public hospitals are a different kind of animal compared to the CMHs. The latter are well-equipped and even on their busiest days, there is little footfall. Public hospitals, on the other hand, are perpetually short of resources and almost a small town’s worth of people swarm in and out every single day. It is a high-pressure job and military men on any side of the border won’t be able to handle it.
And, lastly, is a question that should always be asked: when does it stop? Make an argument for this, and then the engineering corps’ argument for the provincial public works, irrigation & power departments would naturally follow. A case, in the deft hands of the current caretaker setup, could also be made, then, for the districts to be run and policed by serving military men. Not possible, because a cadre of PAS and PSP officers already exists for that? Well, it also exists for PIMS and Polyclinic, but here we are.
