May 12, 2003	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, May 11: The Punjab government will be taking the Punjab Medical and Health Institutions Bill 2003 to the provincial assembly for debate and approval in the last week of the current month.

Talking to this reporter on Sunday, Punjab Minister for Law Raja Basharat said the bill, already approved by the cabinet, was likely to come into effect before June 30.

The bill has proposed abolition of the offices of the principal executive officer and deputy dean. Besides, it fixes a deadline for ending private practice by government doctors, changes the composition of the governing body and renames it as Board of Management (formerly Board of Governors).

He said once presented before the assembly, the bill would be referred to a committee of the house for deliberations. However, he said, the government would see that the bill took minimum possible time in the assembly before getting approved.

Asked about any possible changes in the bill prior to enactment by the assembly, he said there were very less chances of such a happening.

Meanwhile, the doctors are pessimistic about the future of the new bill and fear that its fate cannot be much different from that of the Health Ordinance 2002 and a similar attempt during Shahbaz Sharif’s period to grant autonomy to hospitals.

Some of them view it as a change for the sake of change rather than aiming for any meaningful change.

The group most affected by the proposed bill is that of the general cadre medical administrators. Their contention is that the office of the medical superintendent enjoys a pivotal position in the health care system, but has been greatly disregarded in the proposed legislation, which envisages that the hospital management committee should be headed by the principal of the medical college rather than the head of the hospital.

They said the medical superintendent was more suitable for the assignment of head of the hospital management committee as he was more directly involved in the hospital affairs and knew about the ground situation than the college’s principal.

Discussing the new legislation, they said the medical superintendent was not only being deprived of his rightful role of head of hospital management committee, but his/her position had been undermined to the extent that his/her weightage would be no more than that of the junior doctor and nurse, who would also be the members of the committee.