ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: Mayo Hospital’s Prof Riaz Ahmed Warraich has been proposed to replace Prof Mahmood Jamal as executive director of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), Dawn has learnt.
Prof Warraich is head of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at King Edward Medical University and Mayo Hospital, Lahore.
A source in the Establishment Division said that Secretary of the Ministry of Capital Administration and Development (CAD) Asrar Raouf has moved a summary to the prime minister suggesting that Prof Warraich head the federal capital’s largest hospital next.
In the summary, a copy of which is available with Dawn, the secretary introduced his nominee as a highly qualified doctor with a number of national and international publications and postgraduate degrees to his credit.
It also stressed that Prof Warraich has been serving as chairman of Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery since 2005.It is for the sixth time that the head of the coveted post is being changed in three years.
“Since the retirement of Prof Abdul Majeed Rajput in 2009, the government has made only ad hoc appointments to the post,” a CAD official said, adding that the summary for the latest appointment “has been moved on the orders of Minister for CAD Nazar Mohammad Gondal”.
In his opinion “six changes at the top in three years betrays poor governance on part of the federal government”.
According to Pims’ administration record, the federal health ministry, now defunct, had appointed Dr Altaf Hussain executive director after Prof Abdul Majeed Rajput in April 2009.
Just two months later, the then health minister, Mr Aijaz Hussain Jhakarani of PPP, removed him and gave the charge to Prof Mahmood Jamal on June 6, 2009.
But Dr Altaf Hussain’s “powerful connections” brought him back in the office the same month and sent Prof Jamal packing without assigning any weighty reason, the CAD official said.
In Dec 2009, the federal government had to remove Dr Altaf Hussain following uproar over the death of PML-N legislator Faiz Mohammad Khan, allegedly due to negligence of Pims doctors.
This time Prof Ghazala Mehmood replaced Dr Hussain. Health Minister Jhakarani also lost his portfolio in the wake of the PML-N legislator and Makhdoom Shahabuddin became the new health minister.
Prof Ghazala took over as executive director of Pims on December 10, 2009 and lost the position the next year in the wake of agitation by the hospital’s nurses for pay increase and her removal.
“As a ready solution, Prof Jamal was appointed executive director once again on April 4, 2010 on the orders of the then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and has been running the hospital since,” said the official.
Now, CAD Secretary Raouf’s summary proposes to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf that “Dr Riaz Ahmed Warraich of Basic Scale 20 may be appointed as executive director of Pims in Grade 21 on deputation for a period of three years” and informs that “the federal minister for CAD (Nazar Mohammad Gondal) has seen and approved the summary”.