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| Administrative wrangle leaves police hospital in tatters |
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
By Saher Baloch
Karachi
The ongoing onflict over the administrative control of the Police Welfare Hospital, Garden, between the Police and Sindh Health Department, is posing the policemen difficulties, Additional Inspector-General (AIG) Shahid Hayat told The News.
Constructed in 1945, the Police Welfare Hospital gets its funds from the Home and Health Departments, while the latter also recruits doctors for the hospital.
And that’s where the problem starts, as the patients, all of them policemen, complain that there are no doctors to attend to them in the hospital, and as a result, they are referred to government hospitals.
“What’s the use of their getting salaries from the hospital when these doctors don’t bother to show up at all?” asks Hashim Khan, a constable.
Hayat seems to have an answer to that as he says that on May 2005 they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with the Health Department and Sindh government respectively which stated that the police department will be controlling police hospitals in Karachi and Hyderabad and in a letter to the Secretary, Health, he had asked the Health Department to take back the doctors recruited by them “as they are not adding anything to the hospital.”
However, the Secretary, Health, did not entertain this demand, stating that it was in complete violation of the rules and as for the notification for the handing over of the hospital, it was issued in 2007. “The only good thing that came out of it is that the doctors have stopped coming as we have categorically told them not to,” says Hayat.
The Secretary, Health, was out of country when contacted for comments.
Moreover, a budget of Rs35 million is allotted to the police department in Karachi which comprises a task force of 35,000 which leaves seven rupees per policeman.
“We can’t even get a Disprin strip for this amount”, says Hashim Khan, and
adds that no matter what the high-ups do it’s ultimately the constables who face a hard time.
Meanwhile, the welfare hospital is being reconstructed by the police department but without any financial help from the government. “We are taking help from the other sources this time and have amb itious plans to see our project through, no matter what people say,” asserted Hayat.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
