July 26, 2008	Saturday	Rajab 22, 1429

PESHAWAR, July 25: The authorities have amended Khyber Medical University Act to pave the way for the promotion of more than 160 doctors serving in six public sector medical colleges.

According to the amended law, sources said, those colleges would no more remain constituents to Khyber Medical University and the provincial government would handle their affairs.

Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani issued an ordinance few days ago to amend the KMU Act 2006, enabling the non-PhD teachers to get promotion to next grades, they added.

Under the amended Act, they said, the medical colleges in the province had been handed over to the provincial health department that would take decisions regarding promotion of teachers and other matters of the health institutions.

Following the establishment of the Khyber Medical University through an Assembly Act in 2006, the medical colleges of the province had been declared constituents of KMU. Teachers of the clinical medical sciences of the six medical colleges of the province had been promoted to the next grades in accordance with the rules set forth by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

Whereas about 166 teachers of the basic medical sciences had not been upgraded because of not possessing PhD degrees, which they were required to possess for promotion under the HEC’s rules.

The teachers who were denied promotion approached the provincial health department, which proposed amendments to the KMU Act. The governor amended KMU Act 2006 last week that placed the province’s medical colleges under their respective previous management.

The amendments meant that the provincial medical colleges would no more required to follow the HEC’s rules for upgradation and the teachers would get promotion in line with the rules set forth by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) as well as the provincial government.

“Now the KMU has been reduced to mere examination conducting body of the medical colleges,” said the sources.

They said that the activists of the People’s Doctors Forum, a group of doctors affiliated with PPP, was behind the amendments to the Act. Malgari Doctoran, a pro-ANP group of doctors, had opposed the amendments, saying that the two-decade long struggle for the establishment had been brought to square one.

“This has deprived KMU of Rs3 billion grant, which the HEC grants to all universities of the country annually,” a member of Malgari Doctoran said. He said that the amendments were aimed at paving the way for the promotion of some teachers which might destroy the medical education.

However, sources in the health secretariat said that the amendments had created an uncertain situation for the health department. Previously, the provincial government through institution management committees (IMCs) in various hospitals and colleges would promote the teachers of the medical sciences to next grades.

“But what would happen to the teachers of clinical sciences who had already been upgraded by KMU under the HEC’s rules,” questioned a senior medical teacher. Secretariat sources revealed that the amended ordinance would stay enforced for three months if the amendments weren’t passed by the NWFP Assembly. They said that the medical colleges would again become constituents of the KMU after the lapse of three months.

Sources said that the governor had been apprised of the harms of the amendments by the KMU officials well before the issuance of the amendments. The amended law, they said, would be considered enforced from January 13, 2007, the day on which KMU Act was implemented.

Hospitals Coordination Committees would also be replaced by Board of Governors at Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad, and Khyber Teaching Hospital by Institution Management Committee.

Moveable and immoveable properties of the colleges which had been taken over by the KMU would be transferred to the provincial health department.