LAHORE, Jan 23: The Punjab governor on Wednesday approved the long-awaited ‘The Punjab Medical and Health Institutions Rules, 2002’ to run seven medical colleges and attached teaching hospitals.

All autonomous medical colleges and hospitals were working without formal rules and regulations for the last three years and the health delivery system was drastically affected.

The approved rules and regulations would now be published by the health department and made public on Friday (tomorrow).

The health department had also regularized the services of existing autonomous health institutions’ chief executives in retrospect. Meanwhile, the health department would advertize posts of principal executive officers (PEOs) and constitute boards of governors. The BoGs would select PEOs for their respective institutions.

This was announced by health minister Prof Mahmood Ahmad Chaudhry while addressing a press conference late on Wednesday night. He said that the health department was continuously working on framing these rules. He said that the rules were revised after receiving input from different quarters. He hoped that the new rules would help provide smooth and efficient health delivery to poor and vulnerable patients. He said that these rules, to be implemented in a couple of months, would also provide opportunities to young doctors, nurses and paramedics. On the other hand, he said the slackness and casualness of doctors and all other employees would also be checked effectively.

Answering a question, the minister said that only a handful of doctors were criticizing and protesting against the rules. He said that those ‘senior’ doctors who would not be able to continue their civil service under the new rules would happily be allowed to devote their full time to their private practice.

“Even if these doctors will leave the government service and devote their expertise to the private sector, it will eventually help the government in its cause to deliver quality health delivery service to masses,” he said. “Similarly, those who want to go abroad and earn more money will become instrumental in transferring technology and foreign exchange to their homeland,” he said.