PESHAWAR: Authorities have asked the Board of Governors of medical teaching institutions (MTIs) to fill up vacant positions to ensure smooth-sailing of the operations and improve patients’ care as well as academic activities.

The orders have been issued by Policy Board after which the respective MTIs have started advertising vacant posts, including key positions that have been lying vacant for one to two years.

The chairman of MTI Policy Board, Prof Nausherwan Burki, told Dawn that all MTIs were instructed to advertise vacant slots and fill them with regular individuals. “Within a month or two, all the positions will be filled,” he said.

A case in point is of Khyber Girls Medical College/Hayatabad Medical Complex where the posts of dean and hospital director (HD) have been lying vacant since September 2024, that of director building since Dec 2020, nursing director since Nov 2024, accidental and emergency manager since June 2023, biomedical engineer since June 2024, procurement in-charge since Jan 2024, material management manager since June 2024, main store keeper since June 2024, media manager since January 2024 and maintenance supervisor since Nov 2021.

Policy Board chief says all positions will be filled within a month or two

This is true for most of the 10 MTIs in the province except Lady Reading Hospital where the positions of dean and medical director are appointed on temporary basis and permanent employees are working on other posts.

Sources said that non-filling of those positions had been adversely affecting administrative, clinical and academic activities of MTIs.

The issue was discussed during the recent meeting of Policy Board in detail and orders were issued to hire people on those slots on permanent basis after test and interviews, they added.

They said that currently the people working on those positions also drew additional salaries. After coming to power for the first time in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2013, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf started health reform process and a law was passed to introduce reforms in teaching hospitals and their affiliated medical and dental colleges.

Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA), 2015, was passed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly that was gradually implemented in teaching hospitals. Under the law, the MTI-covered institutions slipped away from the control of health department and were managed by Board of Governors (BoGs).

Prior enforcement of MTIRA, these hospitals were run by health department and each of the teaching hospital had one medical and deputy medical superintendent, who managed all affairs while the medical and dental colleges were headed by respective principals for academic work.

They all received salaries as per government’s rules but with the enforcement of MTIRA, batteries of positions were created for all sections including dean, medical director, hospital director, finance director laundry manager, OPD manager, human resource manager, director nursing and director etc, who were given higher salaries than the government’s system.

In many cases, professor at the same MTIs received their own salaries in addition to the benefits of the post of dean, medical and hospital directors for holding additional charge.

The law was meant to hire competent people on competitive salaries to improving operations of MTIs and provide better care to patients.

However, the system has not worked properly given the fact that most of these positions remained unoccupied for much of the time and the affairs were managed on ad hoc basis.

Non-existence of permanent dean, medical, hospital and nursing directors have badly hampered the operations of MTIs as the people working on temporary basis couldn’t take vital decisions as per law.

That is the main reason that MTIs have not proved beneficial for patients’ care as these were expected to be.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2025