The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Islamabad has expressed support for Prof Dr Sadia Riaz, head of neonatology, and Senior Registrar Dr Nagham Nawaz Awan, arguing that clinicians should not be held personally responsible for failures involving hospital administration, infrastructure, fire-safety systems or equipment maintenance over which they have no administrative control.
In a statement, the association said the primary responsibility of both doctors was patient care and questioned the fairness of holding them accountable for institutional or administrative shortcomings.
“Prof. Dr. Sadia Riaz, HOD Neonatology, and Dr. Nagham Nawaz Awan, Senior Registrar, are clinicians whose primary responsibility is patient care—not hospital administration, infrastructure, fire-safety systems or maintenance of equipment,” the association said.
The YDA described both doctors as highly qualified and dedicated clinicians who had served the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and its patients with professionalism and commitment.
It said holding clinicians personally responsible for institutional administrative failures, particularly when they did not exercise authority or control over the systems concerned, raised questions about fairness and due process.
The association called on the medical community to stand behind the two clinicians and said their professional contribution and clinical work should be recognised rather than allowing them to become what it described as “convenient scapegoats”.
YDA said accountability was necessary but should be directed at the individuals and systems that had actual authority and responsibility for fire safety, infrastructure, maintenance and emergency preparedness.
“Stand with our clinicians. Stand for fair accountability. Stand for facts, due process and justice,” the association said.
Separately, Dr Yusra Kafait Ali, a clinical research coordinator at Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University/PIMS and a paediatrician at Divisional Headquarters Teaching Hospital Mirpur, AJK, strongly defended Prof Dr Sadia Riaz in a Facebook post.
Dr Ali described Dr Riaz as an experienced clinician, teacher and mentor who had devoted much of her professional career to patient care and medical training at PIMS.
She said Dr Riaz had worked beyond her formal responsibilities, including treating patients in paediatric wards, mentoring trainees, training neonatal intensive care unit staff and helping develop clinical expertise in newborn care.
According to Dr Ali, Dr Riaz had also contributed to establishing and managing services for patients suffering from rare and genetic diseases, including participation in a German-Pakistan collaboration focused on genetic disorders.
She said the work involved patient enrolment, maintaining records and follow-up with families affected by rare genetic conditions.
The post particularly highlighted Dr Riaz’s contribution to neonatal care and the treatment of premature and extremely low-birth-weight babies.
Dr Ali said Dr Riaz had promoted practices including kangaroo mother care, in which premature newborns are provided skin-to-skin contact with their mothers, and had worked with national and international organisations, including the World Health Organization and UNICEF, on newborn health programmes.
She also credited Dr Riaz and her team with contributing to guidelines, management protocols and other tools used in the care of sick newborns at teaching hospitals.
Dr Ali said doctors trained or influenced by Dr Riaz were now working in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and abroad.
She said Dr Riaz’s teaching had helped paediatricians and neonatologists develop the clinical skills and confidence required to manage critically ill premature babies.
Dr Ali also spoke about her own experience of being trained by Dr Riaz, saying the lessons she received continued to guide her during neonatal resuscitation and other emergencies.
In strongly worded remarks, she questioned what she described as the suspension of a clinician over a “system failure”, arguing that doctors should not become targets for shortcomings stemming from administrative or institutional systems.
She warned that such actions could discourage clinicians from taking on demanding teaching, training and public-service roles.
“You do not serve a nation by sacrificing its healers on the altar of administrative failure, system collapse, and fabricated blame,” she wrote.
The YDA statement and Dr Ali’s post both called for accountability to be based on clearly established responsibility and due process, while urging authorities not to place responsibility for administrative and safety systems on clinicians whose duties primarily involve patient care.