PESHAWAR, March 24: If institution-based practice for government-employed doctors did not benefit the common man, the NWFP government would abolish this system, replacing it with the old one, head of an assembly panel on health said.

Speaking at an Awami Health Forum organised by the Pakistan Medical Association, Anwar Kamal Khan Marwat said that being the chairman of the assembly’s committee on health, he had contacted all concerned regarding the new system.

He said that if it was not found public-friendly, the IBP will be withdrawn and replaced with the old system.

The seminar was addressed and participated by people of different walks of life.

He emphasized that a public-oriented health delivery system should be introduced.

He suggested that a health regulatory body should be formed in order to regularize and document the private practice of doctors.

Mr Marwat said the regulatory body should include professional doctors, members of the provincial assembly and prominent members of civil society, so that it could guide the government on health issues.

He said like in all segments of society, health department also have some “black sheep” who must be tackled properly if the whole doctors community is to be saved from blackmail.

The speakers tended to be in favour of abolishing the IBP as well as the hospitals’ autonomy, and forming of a regulatory body to oversee the health sector’s functioning.

ARD’s central general secretary, Iqbal Zafar Jaghra, MPA, expressed concern over the lack of national spirit.

While condemning the Legal Framework Order, he likened it with the institution-based practice now in vogue in the NWFP, and said that a dictator gave both the gifts. —PPI