ISLAMABAD: Employees of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) on Tuesday held a protest, demanding that Pims, which had been placed under Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, should be restored as a hospital.

The employees were of the view that by placing Pims under a university, the future of 4,000 employees had been put at stake.

It is pertinent to mention here that during the tenure of the previous government, the parliament passed the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University Islamabad Bill 2013 despite criticism and protest by the opposition.

The bill was moved by then Minister for Capital Administration and Development Nazar Mohammad Gondal. Because of the bill, Pims was upgraded to a university and empowered to confer degrees, diplomas, certificates and other academic distinctions.

The general secretary of Pims Nursing Association told Dawn that Pims was a welfare department and provided free treatment to thousands of patients everyday.

By converting it into a university, it will become a fund generating institution due to which employees and patients would suffer.

He said usually medical colleges were upgraded to the level of universities but it was the only precedent in which a government hospital had been upgraded as a university.-A Reporter