HYDERABAD: After a considerable delay of almost three years, the Sindh government has finally appointed the first ever “director finance” in Liaquat University Hospital (LUH), commonly known as the Civil Hospital of Hyderabad.

Ikram Din Ujjan, the incumbent vice chancellor of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) Jamshoro, has been given the additional charge for the post under Sindh High Court’s March 3 order till the appointment of a regular officer.

Mr Ujjan confirmed to Dawn that he had taken over the charge as the director of finance after the issuance of notification to this effect by the Sindh chief secretary on March 7.

The appointment process for the finance director has also been finalised by the LUH’s Hospital Management Board and the CM has to finalise the name of the candidate from a panel of three.

The ‘director finance’ post in the LUH had been so far held by an officer of development wing, who held three posts under the nomenclature of ‘director admin, accounts and development’. This post was created after re-designating the LUH’s clinical side post of additional medical superintendent (AMS).

Mr Ujjan was appointed VC of the LUMHS on Jan 2, 2023 after the government’s search committee process for the appointment of VCs for four years.

The re-designation of the post was declared illegal by the Sindh Services Tribunal in Sept 2020 and the tribunal’s judgement was upheld by the apex court which termed it a ‘person-specific amendment’ in rules. But the health department did not fill the vacancy until the March 3 order of the high court.

A Sindh High Court bench headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar at the principal seat had called for appointment of director finance on Sept 21, 2021 within three months in all Sindh’s tertiary hospitals.

Then health secretary Dr Kazim Jatoi undertook to do this and also release ‘one-line budget’ for tertiary hospitals. Still, the process was delayed.

The LUH has been badly hit by financial indiscipline in last few years so much so that tenders worth Rs912 million were cancelled in last August on account of serious financial anomalies and favouritism.

LUH’s post of AMS not revived

Likewise, the Sindh health department has not yet revived the post of the AMS for the LUH in the light of apex court’s detailed judgement dated April 20,2021 in an appeal against Service Tribunal’s Sept 22,2020 order passed on the application of Ali Abbas Khoso of Nawabshah against denial of his promotion.

The LUH even otherwise faced a shortage of doctors. Such post of AMS considered important for any tertiary hospital. The LUH is the Sindh’s second largest teaching hospital attached with the LUMHS.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2023