GUJRAT: The provincial health department’s failure to appoint a regular medical superintendent of the Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Teaching Hospital (ABSTH) since February the last has been resulting in various problems, adversely affecting the service delivery at the facility.

The medical superintendent slot’s at the hospital has been vacant since suspension of Dr Shahid Farooq.

The health facility has been a teaching hospital of Nawaz Sharif Medical College (NSMC) since 2014 when it was upgraded from a district headquarters hospital.

The hospital’s three previous medical superintendents, Dr Tahir Naveed, Dr Shahid Maroof and Dr Shahid Farooq had been suspended during the past few years.

On March 5 the last, the Punjab government had handed over additional charge of the ABSTH’s MS to Dr Abid Malik who was already serving there as an additional MS.

Official sources told Dawn the health department had been finding it hard to run the hospital’s affairs since its was declared a teaching hospital.

They said there had been differences between the local medical fraternity, the district administration and the management of University of Gujrat (UoG) over the managerial control of the hospital.

The NSMC has been a constituent college of the UoG and the varsity’s vice chancellor has been the appointing authority of the college’s principal who has no administrative control over the teaching hospital’s staff, including doctors working under direct control of the health department.

In case of an administrative is sue the doctors and other staff of the hospital argue that they are answerable to the MS, whereas the faculty and other officials deputed by the NSMC at the facility don’t think so.

This situation had not only been a cause of great inconvenience for the patients but was also affecting the service delivery at the hospital, said a senior official of the district administration.

He added the issues relating to the administrative control of the ABSTH had consistently been raised before the senior hierarchy of the health department but to no avail.

A special meeting to discuss the ABSTH’s administrative issues was held at the Hafiz Hayart Campus of the UoG on Wednesday which was attended by the UoG VC Dr Ziaul Qayyum, Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali, representatives of the doctors, hospital’s management and other concerned officials.

The DC said that he had talked to the health secretary regarding the hospital’s issues, including posting of a regular MS and that efforts were being made to resolve the same so that the patients could be provided relief.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2018