ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s federal health minister on Monday proposed ending permanent jobs in public hospitals and instead hiring employees on performance-based contracts, days after a deadly fire at a prominent government hospital in Islamabad killed 14 newborns.
The proposal came during Health Minister Mustafa Kamal’s interaction with reporters after he appeared before a parliamentary committee to discuss a fire that broke out at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) last Wednesday. Fourteen babies were killed in the blaze while only one was rescued, raising questions about the state of fire safety arrangements in place at government hospitals.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif suspended eight officials and ordered criminal proceedings against them on Saturday after an inquiry into the fire found serious safety and emergency-response failures.
“In public hospitals, a person should not be on permanent, government payroll,” Kamal told reporters after the meeting. “Hire them on contracts.”
Kamal said health care employees should be hired on higher-paying performance contracts in public hospitals. He added that department heads should have the authority to hire, fire and manage budgets, without the staff using court orders to block dismissals.
“Instead of just injecting money, the entire administrative system requires a complete overhaul,” the minister noted. He said hospital managers must be held directly accountable for the performance of the employees.
Kamal spoke about a separate fire that broke out in the waiting room at a PIMS nursing hostel on July 6. He said the fire broke out after a lightbulb melted and fell down, igniting a sofa. The fire was extinguished, but Kamal said neither he nor his ministry were informed of the incident.
Lawmakers questioned hospital officials and regulators over fire safety, inspections, emergency preparedness and the reporting of earlier incidents during the meeting.
They also discovered that PIMS did not conduct a general fire drill for all staff members. Rather, the hospital carried out one only for security guards in February.
The public hospital had never undergone a regulatory inspection by the Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA), the committee learned.
The senators criticized the IHRA after an official admitted the oversight, despite the agency sealing 358 non-compliant private sector health care facilities in the past year alone.
Senator Amir Waliuddin Chishti, chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services, said lawmakers were dissatisfied with the management of PIMS, the CDA and Civil Defense.
“The people who have to provide services here 24 hours a day are the administration, the local administration and the Islamabad administration,” Chishti said.
SOURCE OF FIRE
Kamal said investigators had yet to establish the cause of the fire. Short circuits, air conditioners and incubators had all been considered as probable sources of the fire, he said, but investigators had not determined what triggered the blaze.
A preliminary inquiry recommended reviewing the role of the outsourced security company, whose contract contained fire-safety requirements. Officials said the company could face blacklisting and criminal proceedings if violations were established.
Kamal said determining individual liability and filing criminal cases was the responsibility of the inquiry committee, not the health ministry.
The minister announced that the government has ordered a third-party audit of all federal hospitals to identify safety deficiencies and determine equipment requirements. Kamal said the audit would be completed in 15 days, after which its findings would be used to prepare financial requirements that will be submitted to the Planning Commission and the prime minister.
