LAHORE, July 9: The Punjab government finalized on Wednesday selection of principals and nominations of private members for Boards of Management of 11 autonomous medical and health institutes in the province. The BoM are expected to be notified on Thursday (today).

The new BoM, replacing the Boards of Governors, were finalized at a meeting chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed and Health Secretary Hassan Wasim Afzal attended the meeting.

Sources told Dawn that 66 private members had been selected out of 150 nominations to represent BoM. Each BoM will comprise 10 members, six of them private. The private members have been selected from eminent judges, former civil servants, financial and management experts and non-controversial professors retired from medical institutions.

It is learnt that the Punjab government will (itself) nominate BoM chairmen from among the private members. Out of the existing 66 private members in BoGs, some 10 members have again been nominated to work in BoM.

The sources claimed that the principal executive officers of five autonomous medical institutions would be replaced while six PEOs would continue as principals in the new set-up. The six institutions are the King Edward Medical College, Allama Iqbal Medical College, Postgraduate Medical Institute/Services Institute of Medical Sciences, Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Quaid-i-Azam Medical College, Bahawalpur, and the Nishtar Medical College, Multan adding that the principals for the new set-up had been selected on the basis of seniority-cum-fitness.