Nobody among the authorities concerned bothers the plight of patients at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) as several patients who visited different Out-Patient Departments (OPDs) of the hospital suffered while all OPDs remained shut down for second day due to strike by employees against Medical Teaching Institution (MTI) Act.
It has been almost two years now when President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvli Dr Alvi had promulgated the MTl Ordinance in November 2020 under which the hospital was meant to run through a Board of Governors (BoG). Since then, the protests and strikes in the PIMS have become routine matters that ultimately cause suffering of helpless patients. The authorities concerned about paying deaf concerned about the issue. According to the protesting employees, no authorities come up to give any sort of assurance regarding resolving the said issue.
According to the ordinance, the BoG had to deal with all affairs of PIMS. Members were appointed and notified by the Ministry of National Health Services and Regulations (NHS&R) on the recommendation of a search and nomination council.
The PIMS is the sole major health care facility in the federal capital with over 3000 patients daily in its OPD. Not only Islamabad, the hospital caters visiting patients from AJK, Rawalpindi, Muree, Jehlum, Chakwal, Attock,Sargodha, Attock and some other parts of the country.
A senior official in the hospital suggested while wishing anonymity that both the staffers as well authorities concerned should sort out the issues on table instead of giving them a form of protest which badly affects only wretched patients. Since its approval, many protests have been held against this Ordinance. Despite that, it had sailed through the Parliament by the previous government of PTI.
Hardly, the incumbent government went through some amendment in the MTI act as per demands of employees and reshaped bill was called MTl Repeal Bill and has been sent it to the President of Dr Alvi in order to get his nod but he (Dr Alvi) returned it with a suggestion to reconsider it. Now, the government has been left with no option but to pass the bill again in a joint session to make it an Act of law. Spokesperson of Federal Health Alliance (FHA) Dr Asfandyar Khan told Daily Times that they will continue their protest until acceptance of their demands. He, however, claimed that some critical patients admitted in the OPDs are being treated without any hindrance. Earlier, the FHA President Dr Haider Abbasi said that the protest will continue till the repeal of MTl law which has become a black law for health workers and patients. He said earlier, during the tenure of PTI, employees had protested for 72 days and they could do it again.
Despite repeated attempts, Minister for NHS&R Abdul Qadir Patel could not be approached to have comments on the issue.
Spokesperson NHS&R Sajid Hussain Shah said that the ministry has nothing to do with the ordinance. “It is delayed from President Dr Alvi, not the Ministry,” he claimed, adding that to facilitate patients should be kept in consideration by all means.
He further stated that as a regulatory body the Ministry was keen to prioritize public interests and made policies in favor of patients. Climate change to cause dengue outbreaks in non-vulnerable high-altitude areas: study. Pakistan after receiving massive manifestations of spiking up global warming, the environmental degradation and shift in monsoon weather pattern and increased temperatures would face spread of dengue outbreaks in non-vulnerable high-altitude areas.
A study carried out by the scientists and experts from the Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC), Health Services Academy (HSA) and National Institute of Health (NIH) titled “Modelling the impact of climate change on dengue outbreaks and future spatiotemporal shift in Pakistan” discussed significant impacts of climate change on the intensity and spread of dengue outbreaks. The research got published in a leading environmental and health journal Environmental Geochemistry and Health.
The much-needed research underlined a mix of outcomes highlighting rise and decline in the outbreak scenarios of dengue disease. The study’s aim was to assess the number of dengue transmission suitable days (DTSD) in Pakistan for the baseline (1976-2005) and future (2006-2035, 2041-2070, and 2071-2099) periods under Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios.
“Our findings also indicate that DTSD would spread across Pakistan, particularly in areas where we have never seen dengue infections previously. The good news is that the DTSD in current hotspot cities is projected to decrease in the future due to climate change.”
The research while indicating disease rise during the baseline period (1976-2005), identified the top ten hotspot cities with a higher frequency of DTSD namely Karachi, Hyderabad, Sialkot, Jhelum, Lahore, Islamabad, Balakot, Peshawar, Kohat, and Faisalabad. The rising temperatures in the North though rang the alarm bells for the researchers as due to climate change there was an elevation-dependent shift in DTSD to high-altitude cities belonging to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also including the Federal Capital. It noted that for instance in the 2020s, Kotli, Muzaffarabad, and Drosh; in the 2050s, Garhi Dopatta, Quetta, and Zhob; and in the 2080s, Chitral and Bunji. “Karachi, Islamabad, and Balakot will remain highly vulnerable to dengue outbreaks for all the future periods of the twenty-first century,” the study cautioned.
The study had further revealed potential spatiotemporal shift and future hotspots of DTSD owing to climate change. The results show a higher DTSD during the monsoon season in the baseline in the study area except for Sindh and South Punjab.
The study outcomes show that in the future periods, a temporal shift (extension) towards pre- and post-monsoon season was predicted. However, there was a temporal shift in the region during the post- and pre-monsoon season, which provides suitable breeding conditions for dengue mosquitos due to freshwater; therefore, local authorities needed to take adaption and mitigation actions. APP
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