Won’t let PIMS go in pvt hands: Bajwa

Saturday, 21/12/2013

http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=89905&boxid=58164&uid=&dat=2013-12-21

Jalandhar : Punjab Congress Committee chief Partap Singh Bajwa on Friday said that the Congress would never let the SAD-BJP government hand over the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in private hands and that he would lead a delegation of doctors for a meeting with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh at Mullanpur on December 30.

Bajwa said the PIMS was government property worth several crores and they would never let any private party like Fortis Hospital, Mohali take it over. He urged Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to either sort out the matter within a week or declare the failure of the SAD-BJP government in running the premier tertiary institution.

“If Badal fails to address the matter in a week’s time, we would arrange a meeting of the doctors and the MBBS students with the Prime Minister, who would be coming for the foundation stone-laying ceremony of Tata Memorial Centre Hospital at Mullanpur on December 30,” he added.

“Let PIMS be taken over by the Central government on the lines of the PGI Satellite Hospital, Sangrur. If the cash-starved SAD-BJP alliance is not able to run the hospital, then cancel the 99-year lease of the PIMS Medical Education and Charitable Society headed by SAD Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra and hand it over to the Central government,” he added.

The Congress chief, who was accompanied by Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Santosh Chaudhary, Congress spokesperson Sukhpal Singh Khaira and other senior leaders, was at PIMS to meet the doctors on strike owing to non-payment of salaries for the past five months.

“The Badal government should make its stand clear on the PIMS. It is the responsibility of the Chief Minister to ensure that the hospital became a success, but he gave it in the hands of Surjit Singh Rakhra, who was a novice in this field. Doctors, para-medics, technical and non-technical staff have not been paid salaries for the past over six months, while the fate of 300 MBBS students is at stake,” he said.

Bajwa said that Badal had been claiming that the state government had ample funds for development projects, “then why was PIMS on the verge of closure? If the SAD-BJP government has ample funds, the Chief Minister should immediately release the pending salaries of the doctors and the other staff and hand over PIMS to Punjab government. Else, the Congress would ensure that the Centre takes over PIMS,” he said.

Chaudhary calls PIMS meeting

Union Minister of State Santosh Chaudhary said she had called a meeting of the PIMS management at Delhi on December 23. “I would take up this issue with Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, so that PIMS could be taken over by the Central government,” she added.

Chaudhary said that she would be meeting Azad at a Health Fair in Jammu and Kashmir, where this matter would be taken up. “PIMS has state-of-the-art infrastructure, the best faculty and a medical college, which should be run by the government only,” she added.

“It was surprising that besides making a mockery of health delivery services, the Punjab government was also playing with the future of the MBBS students. The MCI has already banned fresh admissions,” she said.