Nurses’ certificates under scrutiny

RAWALPINDI,August 1: Unearthing a case of using fake certificate to get job, Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC) has started verifying secondary school and intermediate certificates of nurses posted at three government hospitals in the city.

Sources told Dawn on Sunday that RMC Principal Dr Afzal Farooqi had requested the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), Rawalpindi, to verify the certificates of 1,800 nurses working in the city’s three public hospitals.

Of the total nurses, 800 each work in the Benazir Bhutto and Holy Family hospitals. The two hospitals also have nursing schools.
The remaining 200 nurses work in the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital.

Recently when a case of fake certificate of a nurse was unearthed, an inquiry committee was formed to look into it.

The inquiry committee, headed by HFH Additional Medical Superintendent Dr Tariq Niazi, recommended action against the nurse, principal of HFH School of Nursing, and the head clerk.

According to the committee’s report, available with Dawn, the nurse paid Rs30,000 to the head clerk to meet merit at the time admission and provided a matriculation certificate issued from Bahawalnagar.

After completing the four-year training, she applied for “charge nurse” at HFH, but to meet the job criterion, according to the inquiry report, she provided a matriculation certificate issued by BISE, Rawalpindi. The report said: “She has also stated that when she applied at Holy Family Hospital against the post of charge nurse, she again made a payment of Rs30,000 to the head clerk who promised her verification of bogus matric certificate from BISE.”

Recommending more probe into the “activities” of head clerk, the inquiry committee also held the principal of the nursing school responsible for failing to verify the educational documents.

Officials said the inquiry committee’s findings and recommendations had been sent to the Punjab health secretary and the RMC administration was waiting for the “further orders”. They said the RMC administration could not take any action against the nurse, head clerk and the principal as their “appointing authority” was the provincial health department.Dawn.