PESHAWAR: The retired army doctors have outclassed their counterparts from civil hospitals in interviews held for the positions of hospital directors at Peshawar’s two major healthcare facilities, including the Khyber Teaching Hospital and Lady Reading Hospital.

On Friday, the KTH’s Board of Governors recommended the appointment of retired brigadier Dr. Fazli Akbar as the HD from among 84 applicants for the post.

The sources said most of the candidates, who had held administrative positions such as medical superintendents in the hospitals before the introduction of the new law, failed to compete with their counterparts from army mostly due to their exclusive administrative experience.

After graduation from the Khyber Medical College in 1983, Dr. Fazli Akbar joined the army as captain the very next year and held the management posts there until retirement from the Army Medical Corps in 2015.

Earlier in January, the Lady Reading Hospital picked up Dr Hamid Saeed, a retired army officer, as the HD from among 135 candidates, mostly local doctors, who had long held the administrative posts.

The sources said the committees didn’t recommend civilian doctors feeling they were ‘of not use’ in the current system as they had failed to deliver while working on top positions in the hospitals.

They said the powers to appoint the HD lied with the board of governors at the hospitals, where the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Law 2015 had been implemented, but the technical committee helped them make the best choices for the first-ever appointments.

The sources said the candidates had applied for the positions on the basis of their experience in the same hospitals but they’re rejected.

They said some applicants challenged the law in the court of law but applied for the positions announced at the MTI-covered hospitals.

The sources said the selection of retired army officers was quite in line with that at the Combined Military Hospitals, where doctors examined private patients in evening, and therefore, they (retired military men) had been given preference to civilians.

They said those recommended for the posts knew the system because they worked in army hospitals on similar positions.

The sources said at the Hayatabad Medical Complex, where the appointment of medical director, hospital director, the Khyber Girls Medical College dean and others, was in final stages, the BoG would meet next week to make formal announcement in this respect.

They said for each of the positions, around 20 people, including few retired military men, had applied but they weren’t shortlisted.

The sources said the BoG members believed that the selection of retired army doctors on key positions would translate into action the MTRLA being implemented after a delay of one year.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016