PESHAWAR: Lady Reading Hospital has decided to terminate the services of 11 assistant professors, citing their “inability to fulfil the criteria for promotion”.

They included Dr Gul Sharif, Dr Muhsin Hayat, Dr Irshad, Dr Ikram, Dr Naeem, Dr Nadeem, Dr Naveed Iqbal, Dr Saad, Dr Shahida Sultan, Dr Saima Khattak and Dr Arshad Kamal, who have been given separate dates for service discontinuation.

The administration directed assistant professor Dr Ikram, a nephrologist, to quit the charge by Nov 27 this year.

The move caused unrest among fellow consultants, who insisted that Dr Ikram had served the hospital for eight years, so his removal in an unceremonious way would not only discourage other specialists but would leave a negative impact on patient care as well.

They didn’t fulfil promotion criteria, says hospital

In a letter to assistant professor of the nephrology unit Dr Ikram, the LRH’s dean noted that he was considered for promotion at the completion of his eighth year in the post at the nephrology unit but didn’t meet the required regulatory criteria for promotion.

“In accordance with the Regulations for Medical Teaching Institutions (MTIs) under the Medical Teaching Institutions Act, 2015 (as amended in 2022) and revised through the Health Department Notification ..., your continuation as faculty has reached its regulatory limit without promotion. As per Section 21(e) (VI) of the MTI Regulations effective in six months “at the 8th year, the candidate’s service will end,” he wrote in the letter.

“Please let me know the date on which you would like to end your service, with the last possible date being November 27, 2025. On behalf of Lady Reading Hospital MTI, I thank you for your years of service and wish you the best in your future career.”

Senior consultants rejected Dr Akram’s removal from service as “unceremonious and unwarranted by” and said the specialty of nephrology was already scarce and the province needed more specialists given the rising cases of renal ailments that required the services.

“If a person doesn’t meet the criteria for promotion to the associate professor, then, he or she will not be removed but be retained as AP because he had been selected for this position after fulfilling criteria,” a consultant said.

A senior nephrologist complained that removal of a senior and qualified person would discourage the other specialists because the criteria for promotion has been made tougher which cannot be met by many specialists.

“We have a lot of women who are doing jobs along with taking care of their household activities which makes it harsher for them to follow the criteria for promotion which include writing research papers and spending a lot of money,” he said.

The doctor said most people couldn’t find time along with doing morning duties and institution-based practice in the evening, but removal was no solution.

“These so-called MTI’s regulations were being used against the people needlessly because if in this case, the nephrologist is qualified to be AP,” he insisted.

As the move is understood to be replicated in other MTIs, doctors fear it will send out the wrong message, forcing medics to join private hospitals instead of public ones.

Before the enforcement of the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, the consultants who didn’t meet the criteria for promotion to next grades, weren’t removed and they retired in the same position.

“The BoG should reconsider his removal as it will deprive the patients of a senior doctor who has played a vital role in upgrading the services at the LRH,” a senior professor said.

When asked about the impending removal of the nephrologist, Prof Nausherwan Barki, chairman of the LRH board of governors, told Dawn that the “letter is self-explanatory”.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2025