LAHORE: The Directorate of Health Services Punjab, which has been the focus of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif after the 2011 dengue epidemic and outbreak of measles in 2013, is fast losing its effectiveness due to some flawed policies and mismanagement.

It has put several health programmes at stake by appointing inexperienced additional medical superintendents/deputy medical superintendents of government hospitals by replacing qualified and experienced senior officials, a senior official privy to the development told Dawn. Requesting anonymity, the official said the search committee had been bypassed while appointing juniors as directors or heads of programmes.

Posting criteria violations rampant in health department

This is for the first time doctors with just hospital-based experience handling small assignments had been given province-wide responsibilities. This odd arrangement was being made as a message to senior public health officials holding key assignments in other sections of the directorate, he said.

Some documents also revealed the directorate had failed to resolve several important issues. A copy of the documents is available with Dawn.

According to the documents, 35 districts of Punjab had yet to submit working papers of 8,094 outstanding audit paras despite lapse of several years. This was said to be one of the major chunks of unsettled audit paras that had piled up due to negligence on the part of the directorate. Accounts-related embezzlement, corruption and administrative flaws pointed out in the audit paras could result in loss of public money if the matter was not addressed on priority.

Interestingly, a majority of these paras pertained to the pre-devolution period. These anomalies had also been shared in the last EDOs health conference that was presided over by Health Director General Dr Zahid Pervaiz.

“The house was reminded that the internal audit wing director had intimated about non-submission of working papers for audit paras of pre-devolution period despite repeated requests,” according to minutes of the conference.

The documents stated 5,656 out of a total 6,803 ordinary paras and 2,438 out of 3,313 advance paras had not been submitted by the executive district officers (health) of 35 districts to relevant authorities for several years.

Of the 35 districts, 18 were those that were yet to submit working papers of 400 or more outstanding ordinary and advance paras. The districts included Lahore, Sheikhupura, Kasur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Narowal, Gujrat, Faisalabad, Toba Tek Singh, Rawalpindi.

The documents further revealed that 28 official vehicles were being used by directorate personnel bearing fictitious registration numbers (X-68-AF or X-67-AF). Original papers of these official vehicles had been either destroyed deliberately or lost. Documents confirmed officials using these vehicles had no original registration documents.

Of the 28 vehicles, eight were being used by health officials of district Bahawalpur, six in Multan, five in Rajanpur, four each by officials of Rahim Yar Khan and Mandi Bahauddin while one was being used by an official in Khanewal.

The EDOs (health) of 13 districts of Punjab did not issue outstanding payments of Rs6.1 million against procurement of medicines under 20pc reserved funds during 2009-10. The bills could not be cleared under one or the other pretext, the documents stated.

According to the official, Mayo Hospital AMS Dr Ashiq Hussain had been appointed additional director medical vice Dr Attiqur Rehman, who had a Masters in Public Health degree and eight years of experience in the field. He said Jinnah Hospital AMS Dr Zulfiqar Qureshi replaced another MPH holder, Hepatitis Control Programme Manager Dr Islam Zafar, who was known as one of the highly experienced public health officials in the directorate. He had received training for this programme from Chicago and served the department as EDO (health) in three districts besides Punjab CDC director.

Similarly, Jinnah Hospital DMS Dr Masood Anwar was appointed Health Information Management System director which was another top and sensitive position.

Mayo Hospital Purchase Cell in-charge Usman Hafiz was made the purchase director in the health DG’s office. He replaced Azhar Ali Khan who was an experienced official with a degree in public health.

Qualified and experienced Dr Muhammad Naeem was serving the public health department for around eight years. Mayo Hospital AMS Dr Abdul Majeed replaced him as TB Control Programme director. Dr Majeed was the only one from the abovementioned officials who was appointed through the search committee.When contacted, Health DG Zahid Pervaiz was not available for comments. Adviser to the Chief Minister on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique said healthcare programmes were designed to enhance the quality of life and facilitate citizens and the Directorate Health Services Punjab had played a key role in fighting communicable and preventable diseases.

He said the search committee, of which he is also a member, had made postings of senior health officials, including EDOs, district health officials and some programme heads. He added he was not aware of posting of some AMSs as programme directors against experienced officials and that he would inquire into the matter on priority.

About the outstanding audit paras and the use of fictitious registration numbers on official vehicles, he called the issues “very serious and shocking”, saying the government was fully committed to utilising public funds in the right direction. “I assure you these problems will be addressed urgently,” Rafique said.

Health Secretary Dr Aijaz Munir said the vehicles were actually United Nations-funded and it was difficult to get them registered by the Excise Department due to heavy customs duty on them.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd , 2014