Commissioner empowered to sack ‘negligent’ health officials

Karachi
A day after State Minister for Health Saira Afzal Tarar unleashed her scathing criticism over the performance of provincial health officials in combating polio — not a surprise, after international agencies’ exerted pressure — Sindh Chief Secretary Siddique Memon on Tuesday delegated his powers to Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui for taking stern action against officials and vaccinators who were negligent in their duties.
On Monday, the state minister, in a meeting with all of the human machinery involved in polio eradication efforts, had asked the Sindh government to be ruthless in the accountability of officials of the health and police departments whose negligence and disregard was causing delays in vaccination drives and also resulting in children not receiving Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) drops, thus badly affecting the overall quality of immunisation drives in the city.
The chief secretary had announced he would delegate all his powers to the city commissioner during the meeting with Tarar, directing the services, general administration and coordination department to issue a notification in this regard for managing polio vaccination drives and taking stern action against negligent officials. The notification came through on Tuesday.
The chief secretary had warned all health officials that in case of any negligence with regards to polio eradication efforts, harsh departmental action would be initiated along with negative remarks in the annual confidential reports (ACRs) of the employees. He had told the entire provincial bureaucracy to cooperate with anti-polio efforts in Karachi.
However, officials in the Sindh government while talking to The News said the federal government had now given “specific directions” to Chief Secretary Siddique Memon through state minister Tarrar under a “carrot-and-stick policy” when there already had been a number of occasions when negligent officials were not taken to task, despite their poor performance which had caused serious setbacks to polio eradication efforts, especially in Karachi.
During the past two months alone, four polio cases have surfaced in Karachi — one each from Gulberg and Keamari towns while two from different union councils of Gadap Town — and blood samples of several other “hot cases” from different localities of the city are currently under examination at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad.
Earlier in November, three town health officers were removed from their posts for their alleged negligence during the recently-held polio vaccination drives after the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Sindh lodged complaints against them with the authorities.
Just more than a week ago, Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui was appointed as the head of a 12-member “Karachi Task Force for Polio Eradication” and the entire government machinery, including the city police, was put at his disposal to be able to hold and manage effective vaccination campaigns in the next three to four months to control the spread of polio virus in the city.