PESHAWAR: The new amendments incorporated to Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015 are meant to create central authorities at the respective institutions and enable all of them to follow a uniform policy, according to officials.

The architects of the law told Dawn that dean would act as chief executive officer (CEO) at each medical teaching institutions and he would resolve the administrative issues that surfaced repeatedly during the past few years.

They said that the amendments were based on the past difficulties encountered by the MTI-covered institutions in administrative affairs.

The employees of MTIs used to approach dean, medical director (MD) and hospital director (HD) for resolution of their problems and many times the issues remained unresolved as no one took responsibility and they had to wait for the meeting of Board of Governors. Interfering in one another’s domain at the MTIs was another issue.

Dean to act as chief executive officer at each MTI

The BoG had to waste time on small administrative issues while it was supposed to chalk out policy guidelines for the MTIs.

The amended law has made the CEO responsible to play lead role in the MTIs and resolve administrative issues among MD, HD and dean. Now, all such issues will come before the dean, who will present the same before the board directly.

Prior to amendment, MD, HD, ND and dean spearheaded their respective areas and there were always issues, which needed to be placed before the BoG that held its meeting on quarterly basis. So, the matters of conflicts took longer to be resolved. Now the dean will be tackling all the matters.

The dean would look into the day-to-day administrative issues at the MTIs. The BoGs will be free of such issues and therefore it will concentrate more on policy matters.

As fulltime employee of the MTI, the dean will be in a position to closely supervise the institution’s performance in his capacity as CEO. He will take timely decisions, without waiting for BoG’s meetings.

Likewise, policy board has been created in the line of the experience where different MTIs followed different rules. The creation of the policy board through amendments already passed by the provincial assembly is aimed at enforcement of uniform rules in all the MTIs.

The architects of the law said that benefits of the board included adopting same approach in financial and administrative issues as it would discuss all matters and irregularities. It would be monitor the MTIs that would lead to fixation of all issues.

A coordination among all MTIs would be created because they all would be attending meetings of the policy board where all issues would be discussed.

Not only MTIs, but the board would also furnish advice and guidelines to the health department on different issues that would bring uniformity.

The board, which will consist of five members, would also put forward its advice on any policy matter regarding postgraduate medical education and better health services in the whole province.

However, there are fears that the board would be an encroachment upon the autonomy of the MTIs where BoGs also exist. Some people think that the policy board will affect autonomy of the MTIs.

The policy boards have been created to look after matters in all MTIs. Presently, more attention is on Peshawar-based MTIs while those in rural districts don’t get due attention. “Now the boards would see all MTIs,” said officials.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2018