GUJRAT: The district administration is making fresh efforts to resolve the long-standing conflict between the administration of the Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Teaching Hospital (ABSTH) and the Nawaz Sharif Medical College (NSMC) over functioning of the hospital.

A senior officer of the local administration says the administrative affairs as well as the services delivery at the hospital have been the bone of contention between the medical superintendent (MS) of the hospital and the principal of the college.

As the ABSTH has been a teaching hospital of the NSMC, the medical officers, senior consultants and other staff had either been working under the MS of the former or the principal of the latter due to which there has been no unity of command at the hospital because those answerable to the MS don’t cooperate with the principal and vice versa.

Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali Randhawa held a meeting of the officials concerned of the ABSTH, NSMC and the health department to discuss the issue the other day.

District Monitoring Officer (DMO) Waqar Hussain Khan, who also holds the additional charge of assistant commissioner (headquarters), told Dawn that the DC had constituted a committee to prepare the proposals to resolve the issue. The committee would be headed by Additional Deputy Commissioner (Finance and Planning) Saadia Mehr, with Chief Executive Health Authority Dr Abid Ghauri, ABSTH MS Dr Shahid Maroof, NSMC principal Dr Zafar Gill, Deputy Director (Development) Chaudhry Asghar, the DMO and Pakistan Medical Association President Dr Maqsood Zahid as its members.

Mr Khan said the committee would prepare its proposals till April 28 after which another meeting would be held to finalise the proposals to be sent to the Punjab government for further implementation.

As per the previously given proposals by the then district government more than a year ago, the NSMC and its teaching hospital might be given an autonomous status instead of a constituent college of the UoG like the Allama Iqbal Medical College and Jinnah Hospital. Secondly, the NSMC’s principal might be notified as the chief executive of the ABSTH with financial matters resting with the MS like the King Edward Medical College whose principal heads the Mayo Hospital. Thirdly, the UoG and ABSTH might sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to determine who would supervise the medical college and its teaching hospital.

However, the NSMC had been a constituent college of the UoG and the university administration had opposed these ideas as it was of the view that the NSMC had been its integral part and it could never have been established had the varsity not made it as its constituent entity.

According to the master plan of the NSMC, a separate teaching hospital had to be established but due to the lack of financial resources, the provincial government had declared the ABSH as the teaching facility for the college on a temporary basis in 2014 and since that declaration, the hospital has been put under direct control of the health department. The NSMC’s classes are being held at a block of the UoG and the staff was hired as per the university’s own statutes and pay scales.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2017