Patients’ care declines at NICH due to shortage of staff

MN Report

KARACHI- As many as 250 posts of doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and technicians are lying vacant in National Institute of Child Health (NICH), it was reliably learnt.

Moreover, hundreds of employees of the NICH are awaiting promotion as the departmental promotion committee failed to meet in the last five years, the sources said, adding that the situation had arisen as over dozens of employees had retired, some left job to join other national and international health care institutions for better future prospects.     

Sources at the NICH, on the condition of anonymity, said that  although the well-equipped 500-beded NICH, which is biggest children hospital of Sindh, had been providing tertiary care services for almost all types of paediatric diseases, hospital’s administration has started facing numerous challenges immediately after its devolution to Sindh government after the passage of the 18th Amendment.
Under the prevailing uncertain situation, doctors, nurses and paramedical staff and other employees have been discharging their duties half-heartedly and as result which patients’ care was continuously affected, the sources added.
NICH director Prof Jamal Raza when contacted said that a request has been sent to Sindh health department for appointing doctors, nurses, paramedics and other people against the vacant posts and for promotions of employees.