PESHAWAR: Medical director of Peshawar’s Khyber Teaching Hospital Prof Roohul Muqeem has resigned from his office.

Though Prof Muqeem attributed resignation to personal reasons, sources in the KTH claimed that the development came due to political interference in his work and the health department’s pressure for appointments to the KTH, a medical teaching institution.

The board of governors will take up his resignation issue in a meeting scheduled for Monday.

Prof Muqeem, a laparoscopic general surgeon, was appointed MD through a panel of medical professionals and was to complete his three-year term in June this year. He is known for bringing improvement at the hospital.

Prof Muqeem resigned over dept’s pressure for appointments, claim sources

The PTI-led government passed the Medical Teaching Institution Reforms Act 2015 to do away with the rotten health system and improve patients’ care.

Under the new law, BoGs were tasked to run the affairs of the hospitals covered by the law and PTI’s chairman Imran Khan everywhere mentioned it as a pet project of PTI government.

The health department, which controlled all the hospitals prior to the law, has lost its jurisdiction over the big hospitals where the law has been enforced and BoGs which were put in place on the recommendation of the search and nomination council, governed the affairs. The law ensures autonomy to the hospitals.

On December 12 last year, the court had suspended KTH BoG in a petition and had temporarily given powers to the health secretary.

The health secretary had ordered the removal of the KTH medical and hospital directors on Jan 21 over the amputation of a diabetic patient’s hand due to the insertion of wrong intravenous cannula.

The removal came after the health department conducted an inquiry, which spared the nurse, who was primarily responsible for cannula insertion, and the nursing director, a former employee of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, Lahore.

Both officials didn’t get showcase notices to explain their side of the story.

The health department appointed Associate Professor Mohammad Shoaib of the KTH as the acting medical director and Dr Shehzad Faisal, chief of the independent monitoring unit at the director-general health office, as the acting hospital director.

Sources said both were known for opposing the new law and had moved the court challenging the BoG’s decisions regarding appointments.

On Feb 6, the court restored BoG members and declared null and void all health secretary orders in question. Both medical and hospital directors were also restored.

Sources claimed that Prof Muqeem, who vehemently opposed political interference and was being credited for appointment of skilled people to all intensive care units of the 1300-bedded hospital, was finding it hard to work under current circumstances, where the government and politicians wanted to make appointments and transfers.

They added that despite unavailability of funds, he began the accident and emergency department two months ago and the consultants received Rs600 fee in the institution-based practice (IBP) at KTH as opposed to other hospitals, where the fee ranged from Rs1,000 to Rs1,500.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2019