PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is considering incorporating amendments into the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA) to remove hurdles in the way of its implementation as well as granting autonomy to the district level hospitals, according to sources.

The Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act 2015 was passed by the previous government under which financial and administrative autonomy was granted to the teaching hospitals to change the health system and improve the patient care. The law was amended many times, but still the government faced embarrassment in the courts when doctors and paramedics challenged it.

After more than a year of legal wrangling in court the law was cleared towards the end of 2016 after which the reforms process began. However, the PTI which made the law had started consulting the lawyers to further amend it to be able to have smooth sailing with regard to enforcement of the law in its second tenure, the sources said.

New law on the anvil to grant autonomy to district hospitals

They said that the reforms process hadn’t been up to the desired level as despite full support of the party’s leadership no visible change could be witnessed in the MTI-covered hospitals.

The architects of the law argue that they faced difficulties due to petitions filed by stakeholders in the courts which hampered the progress.

The new government is also planning to legislate for granting autonomy to the district hospitals to improve the patient care. Under the proposed law, the sources said, all the district-based hospitals would be governed through boards with little role for the health department as huge investment had been made in the health sector in the past five years by the government.

Salaries of doctors have tripled and the health budget has been increased to about Rs70 billion from Rs20 billion. The number of doctors in the province has gone up to 9,000 from 3,000. New equipments worth Rs3 billion have been bought by the health department in the past one year.

The health department has 60,000 employees to cover over 1,500 health facilities in the province. According to initial reports, the government is introducing the law for the districts under which there will be chief executive who would be running the affairs on the advice of the boards.

Sources said that the government was also aware of the steps taken by the health department for strengthening the district system in the past few years and wanted to make a law to improve the patient care as currently most people from other districts visited Peshawar for their treatment.

The idea behind the autonomy to district hospitals is to allow the healthcare system to operate independently free from political interference. Given the MTI’s experience, the makers of the law would take care of all aspects so as to enjoy an environment free of legal battles.

The new law to streamline district health system will aim at ensuring treatment of people on the district level and allow the tertiary care institutions to receive only chronic and complicated patients.

A task force constituted by Prime Minister Imran Khan has been working on the health-related plan for the whole country, the sources said, adding that the force was spearheaded by the people who had already enforced the MTIRA in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2018