PESHAWAR: Officials in bureaucracy have alleged that the Board of Governors, nominated to bring about reforms in hospitals, have been interfering in the affairs of other departments, which don’t lie under their domain.

The charge has been rejected by Prof Nausherwan Burki, who is behind the enforcement of Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, the pet project of PTI chairman Imran Khan to improve patients’ care.

“Prof Burki, who is also chairman of BoG at Lady Reading Hospital, is overstepping his powers and calls chief minister, chief secretary and administrative secretaries on MTI-related issues. It is not legitimate,” an official said.

Not only him, but other BoG chairmen and members at Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad applied pressure in matters related to MTI, he added.

Prof Burki rejects allegations, says staff hasn’t quite understood how the system should work

“I have not spoken to chief minister for at least three or four months that I can remember and have not spoken to the chief secretary either for more than three months except to say hello once,” Prof Burki told Dawn.

“In any case, what on earth does this have to do with legitimacy,” he questioned.

A former heath secretary, who was removed following his opposition to the MTI, had also objected to Imran Khan chairing meeting of provincial departments.

“Prof Burki, the brain behind construction of Shaukat Khanum memorial Hospital Lahore and Peshawar, is a man of integrity. He spends his own money and time and travels to Peshawar frequently to improve healthcare but government departments are unhappy with the way they were treated,” sources said.

An official said that every file with Prof Burki’s reference moved faster. He could have performed those tasks as adviser to the chief minister, he added.

The chairman of BoG at another hospital said that they intervened to expedite the implementation of MTI and bring amendments to it.

“The BoGs are responsible to make key appointments for their hospitals owing to which they have to push matters relating to vetting and finances etc. In the hospitals where medical and hospital directors have been recruited, there is no role of BoG in administrative affairs,” he said.

He said that at least three secretaries of health department were transferred for showing slackness and not cooperating with the BoG to enforce the new law.

The BoG members, all volunteers, have their own side of story.

“It was responsibility of BoG to confront string of cases against the new law in the courts. There were problems with finance and health departments to be tackled by BoG. Now, we have permanently overcome those issues through proper legislation,” he said.

Prof Burki said that the recent raise in salary for the doctors undertaking institution-based private practice wasn’t suffice, keeping in view the packages offered to consultants world over.

“During the last two weeks, two highly qualified doctors from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa working in UK applied for jobs at LRH but then turned it down because of the low salary,” he said.

Prof Burki said that they needed an incentive for doctors to respond and start IBP for which pay raise was useful. In spite of this the pay for doctors is still ridiculously low compared to the market.

LRH is the first medical teaching institute, which has announced new grades and incentives for faculty, according to which senior registrar will be in grade 15, assistant professor in 16, associate in 17 and professor in 18. They will get Rs134,000, Rs161,000, Rs194,000 and Rs238,000 incentives per month respectively in addition to their salaries.

“We welcome senior consultants doing IBP but a lot of them chose not to. The good thing is that many more junior consultants chose to do IBP. Within six months, the consultants will see how beneficial IBP is, both to the consultants and to the patients, and many may change their minds,” said Prof Burki.

He said that the IBP started on May 16 at LRH was picking up and number of patients reached 39 on Friday, last working day of the previous week.

“There are still a number of obstructions and the staff has not quite understood how the system should work but all the problems will be smoothed out within the next couple of months,” said Prof Burki.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2016