Health minister calls for contract-only staffing at public hospitals after Pims fire

Pakistan’s health minister has proposed ending permanent government employment in public hospitals, days after a fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences killed 14 newborn babies.

Mustafa Kamal said hospitals should employ staff on contracts and bring in a chief executive from the private sector. He argued that permanent employees had become too powerful and could tie departments up in litigation when dismissed.

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There should be no permanent government scale employees in hospitals, they should all be employed on contract basis, and a CEO should be brought in from the private sector to run things effectively.

Under his proposal, the CEO would have full authority to hire and fire staff. Hospitals would submit their annual budgets for approval and then remain responsible for managing their operations and ensuring accountability. Kamal described the plan as a permanent solution to what he called the country’s failing healthcare system.

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Whoever performs and works should remain, everyone else should be let go.

The minister also said an inquiry into the fire in Pims’ gynecology ward found that just 120 seconds passed between the first spark and the flames engulfing the entire Mother and Child Health Centre. He said he learned only after last week’s tragedy about a separate fire at a Pims nursing hostel roughly a month earlier. According to his account, a short-circuited bulb fell onto a sofa, while an internal inquiry report reached the former executive director only one day before the deadly hospital fire.

Kamal said he had offered to resign to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif but was asked to wait until the investigation ended. He said the ministerial position held no personal significance and recalled taking responsibility in the National Assembly. “When I am offering myself up for accountability, then no one should be spared… even though I am not at fault in any of this, but I do take responsibility as the minister,” he said.

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When I am offering myself up for accountability, then no one should be spared… even though I am not at fault in any of this, but I do take responsibility as the minister.