PESHAWAR: The health department is likely to extend the terms of most members of the board of governors in the four public sector medical teaching institutions for three years.

The provincial cabinet had decided on April 19 that the reappointment of those BoG members would happen after the assessment of their contribution to the enforcement of the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, on the recommendation of the respective BoG chairmen.

The health department has asked the BoG chairmen for details of the number of meetings and level of attendance by members along with the reasons for their retention or omission from the boards.

Health department had sought an extension of tenures of the BoGs of the Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar and Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad a week ago.

Cabinet had decided about their reappointment after performance assessment

The cabinet asked the BoG chairmen to pick up the people for the next term after the expiry of the tenure in the middle of May.

The department has also conveyed the chief secretary’s directives to the BoG chairmen for submission to the Supreme Court’s Peshawar registry on May 9 and respond to the points raised in a petition alleging irregularities in appointments, raising user’s charges fee and affecting patients’ care after MTI’s enforcement.

The MTIRA enforced in Jan 2015 prior to threadbare discussions with all stakeholders faced blockades by proxy petitioners in the court and literally began after December 2015 when court cleared the law under which BoGs were entrusted to run the hospitals.

BoGs members who are calling the shots are all volunteers, have been chosen by search committee on basis of their past work in medical field.

Prof Nausherwan Burki, a US-based Pakistani pulmonologist, who comes every month to the city to head the LRH BoG meetings, is the architect of the new law.

He spearheaded construction of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH & RC) in Lahore and Peshawar.

Member of the LRH BoG Dr Mian Tahir Shah, a traumatologist in Saudi Arabia, whose endeavours had resulted in recognition of Emergency Department by College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan for specialisation making first public sector hospital to produce trauma specialists in the country. The hospital hired 30 specialists, included the one nonexistent before in the past two years.

The sources said before the law’s introduction, the hospitals remained in the bureaucratic control where no evaluation and monitoring mechanism exist. Political interference was rampant and activists of political parties held administrative positions, they said.

The sources said the Bed management system, launching evening OPD and institution-based practice, boosting up investigative and clinical services, setting up new specialties have benefited people.

They however said all four main MTIs weren’t equal with regard to performance.

The sources said the LRH and HMC had outdone the KTH and AMC where the situation hadn’t showed the desired improvement.

HMC BoG chairman Sahibzada Mohammad Saeed said the board had recommended the retention of all its six members.

“We would be starting the 200-bedded Trauma Centre in July this year,” he said.

He said the role of Dr Khalid Khan, the BoG member, an overseas Pakistani plastic surgeon, had been significant and the province desperately required the centre to provide the treatment of burns and trauma patients, who were present shifted outside the province.

He will also be providing training to our staff abroad for the new centre,” he said.

In the past two years, we have purchased equipments of Rs2.7 billion, including modern MRI and CT scanners, 13 anesthesia machines besides incurring Rs1.7 billion on infrastructure.

He said the cardiac surgeries had begun, while the improvement of clinical governance was visible.

He said he would present his hospital’s performance in the court on the appointed day.

The KTH and AMC BoGs were headed by the SKMCH doctors.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2018