PESHAWAR: The frequent replacement of health ministers has made it difficult for health department to continue polices of provincial government in a smooth manner in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to officials.

The incumbent provincial government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf appointed Syed Qasim Ali Shah as health minister in March when its cabinet took oath after winning election in 2024 in the province but he was replaced with Ihtisham Ali in September, who was made adviser to chief minister on health.

On Wednesday, Ihtisham Ali was replaced with Khaleequr Rehman, who previously held the portfolio of excise and taxation.

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Senior officials in health department say that these changes don’t augur well for the smooth sailing of the healthcare activities at policy level. Health is a very technical subject and any minister takes at least six months to know about the superficial issues, let alone the basic problems, they add.

“We have been briefing ministers since last year about health department. These include management and healthcare issues and when a minister comes to understand matters and starts working, he is replaced and given another portfolio,” a senior official told this scribe.

Officials say it takes months to brief new minister about affairs of dept

According to him, now officials of health department will continue to hold series of briefings for the new minister to inform him about the working of basic health units, rural health centres, district headquarters hospitals and medical teaching institutions in addition to nursing and paramedical schools and issues in district and provincial health system, which will take months.

He said that the predecessor of the newly-appointed minister was a lawyer by qualification but he gained much knowledge of health affairs and was effectively dealing the matters not only locally but also with UN agencies, including WHO and UNICEF that were permanent partners of health department.

He said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government developed a health policy, which was required to be implemented but those reshuffles were unlikely to help in enforcement of the policy effectively.

Officials said that the province also needed to sort out many health-related international issues with Islamabad that required continuity. “Now the new minister will face issues regarding the matters being taking place outside the province with the Centre or in other provinces or at global level,” they added.

Another senior official said that health department launched major initiatives like outsourcing 72 hospitals to private organisations about which health adviser had much understanding but the new minister would require more time to know about that technical issue.

He said that it would not be an easy exercise to hold plethora of briefings for the new man at helm of affairs because health department had several issues, which required a leader, who could understand them. “Every minister picks his team through which he drives the department to pursue matters and it will be for the third time that a person will need to select his team at provincial level to look into affairs regarding management and patients’ care,” he added.

Senior officials in the department also conceded that it was the prerogative of the elected chief minister to appoint his cabinet members as per need and policy of the party but health was a sensitive department and required consistency that was possible when the leader worked on durable basis.

The province is facing serious issues regarding immunisation, especially polio, and workload on hospitals, which warranted sustainability in policies.

Officials said that they would work under any minister or adviser nominated by the government but changing them now and then would not serve the purpose of the PTI government, which had been claiming to improve patients’ care at grassroots level.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2025