PIC facing acute shortage of medics

Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC), the state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Punjab, has been running short of doctors, nurses, and paramedics.  

The dearth crisis has been leaving in the lurch hundreds of hapless patients visiting the Emergency and other departments of the most important healthcare facility. There are 607 sanctioned seats for doctors and nursing staff in the institute and only 244 employees are working against these regular seats.   

As many as 270 seats of different categories are lying vacant in the health facility.

There are four seats of associate professors in PIC but all have been vacant for the last many years. Likewise, nine seats of Principal Medical Officers out of 11 seats, and 12 seats of Assistant Principal Medical Officers out of 20 seats are laying vacant for the last several years.

The two important seats of Director Emergency and Additional Medical Superintendent (AMS) and nine seats of Deputy Medical Superintendent or Deputy Director Emergency could not be filled despite a lapse of several years. Six seats for Deputy Medical Superintendent are still vacant, while the alone seat of the nursing superintendent is yet filled.

Three seats of Senior Registrar Cardiology out of 14 sanctioned seats and seven seats out of 32 sanctioned seats of Senior Registrar Cardiology Emergency are laying vacant creating problems for the patients who visit the PIC across the province with the hope to have state of art medical facility.  

Three seats of Senior Registrar Cardiac Surgery have been allotted but are still vacant. The hospital is short of 26 medical officers and women medical officers out of 61 seats. As many as 40 seats of Women Medical Officer Emergency are vacant in the facility. Out of 73 seats of Medical Officer Emergency, 9 are still vacant while 10 out of 83 seats of Head Nurse in PIC are laying vacant.

Moreover, the staff appointed on ad-hoc and contract bases have not been regularized in spite of several pledges made by health authorities to them.

As many as 83 employees have been appointed on an ad-hoc basis while nine other employees were appointed on a contract basis.

The hospital insiders said that PIC is facing difficulties in running administrative affairs due to an acute shortage of doctors, staff, and paramedics.

Reporter: Azmat Awan