PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday directed the board of governors of the Khyber Teaching Hospital to file reply to a petition seeking the court’s orders to stop the hospital management from closing down an artificial limb workshop built by the German government on the premises.

Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Nasir Mehfooz directed the legal adviser of the KTH, one of the largest public sector medical teaching institutions in the province, to clarify position on the matter.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by a man affected by polio, Javed Islam, who has been utilising the facilities available at the said workshop and claims that thousands of patients had so far been benefitted through this workshop, which was set up in 1981.

The petitioner claims that in the garb of renovation of the hospital, the administration had been dismantling the expensive machinery installed in the basement of the hospital.

He said the exercise might damage the machinery as it was installed by foreign experts.

Legal adviser of the hospital Saqib Raza told the bench that currently, renovation work was in progress at the hospital.

He said the administration didn’t intend to close down the workshop and that it was temporarily removing the machinery for renovating the premises.

The bench directed the legal adviser to clearly inform it about the time needed for renovation and reinstallation of the machinery.

The respondents in the petition are the KTH board of governors through its chairman, KTH hospital director and director (works), provincial health secretary and social welfare secretary.

The petitioner’s lawyer said his client continued to undergo treatment after being given care, physical therapies and artificial limbs, special shoes and other equipment.

He said the people with disabilities were referred from the pediatric, surgical and especially orthopedic wards of the hospital.

The lawyer said more than 28,000 patients requiring artificial limbs had been registered, treated and provided with artificial limbs.

The lawyer said on the excuse of the KTH’s beautification, the BoG had illegally ordered the removal of the artificial limbs workshop and take possession of the place used by the workshop.

He added that the workshop couldn’t be removed by the BoG as it was not under the administrative control of the board.

The lawyer said the workshop was under the control of the social welfare department.

He also claimed that the management of the workshop had written several letters to the hospital management requesting them to refrain from removing the workshop from the said premises but they were bent upon removing the machinery on the pretext of beautification.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2017