Imran adamant about implementing health reforms in KP

PESHAWAR: Despite strong opposition by sections of the medical fraternity, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan is adamant to implement the much-debated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health and Medical Institutions Reforms Act 2015 in letter and spirit.
Sources close to the PTI chief told The News that Imran Khan is scheduled to address a press conference in Peshawar today where he is expected to announce his pledge about the implementation of reforms.
He is also expected to publicly announce his support to his cousin Prof Dr Nausherawan Burki, the architect of the health reforms.The PTI government after a long debate had presented the “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health & Medical Institutions Reforms Act 2015” to the provincial assembly.
The assembly passed the Act on January 14 and notified it on January 19 this year.It repealed all previous legislation but the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department took a fairly sedate approach in implementing the 2015 Act.
The lack of guidance from the Health Department and the interim directors led to acute distrust in medical fraternity about the Act. This resulted in a number of writ petitions in the Peshawar High Court against the Act.
Besides Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai, Health Secretary Mushtaq Jadoon is being criticised for his selection of the interim medical and health directors. It caused serious setback to the health reforms.
Mushtaq Jadoon’s first major mistake was the appointment of interim medical directors and hospital directors from among the civil servants in all the tertiary care hospitals instead of institution employees.
Most civil servants after their appointment started campaign against the health reforms and mobilised the doctors already engaged in the struggle against the Act.The government gave option to doctors working in the public sector hospitals as civil servants to decide to continue their job as institutional employees or remain civil servants.
“The civil servants were already against the Health & Medical Institutions Reforms Act 2015 as they felt it would endanger their future. By appointing civil servants as medical directors and hospital directors, the health department in fact gave them an opportunity to sabotage the whole process,” a senior medical consultant at the Hayatabad Medical Complex told The News.
Pleading anonymity, he said the health department should have appointed medical directors and hospital directors from among the institutional employees if it wanted the reforms to be implemented in letter and spirit.
Also, most of the medical and hospital directors appointed for an interim period were junior in rank and lacked skills to confront seniors and implement the Act in their respective institutions.
A faculty member at the Lady Reading Hospital said the medical and hospital directors occupied important positions but left Dr Nausherawan Burki alone to face the protesting doctors.“Instead of instigating the doctors, nurses and paramedics against the reforms, the directors should have organized seminars and workshops and addressed apprehensions of the medical community about the Act. But they played a very negative role and put the entire process at stake,” he observed.
The Health Department was supposed to quickly respond to different writ petitions at the Peshawar High Court (PHC), but it failed to do so.The Khyber Medical College Teachers Association (KMCTA) challenged some sections of the Act. The PGMI Teaching Staff Association also challenged it though it didn’t ask for rectification that principal/dean/department heads should be on “seniority-cum-fitness” basis. It also asked for restraining the MTI from repatriation of government servants from these institutions.
A former medical superintendent of the Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad has also challenged the abolishment of MS positions in the Act.The writ petition sought restraining the BoGs from replacing dean PGMI, principal KMC and KGMC.
Interestingly, a doctor who challenged most sections of the MTI is not even working in any public sector hospital.Dr Adnan Taj, a junior doctor like medical director LRH, Assistant Professor Dr Aamir Ghafoor, was removed as health director for his poor performance but he challenged his removal and was reinstated due to cold response of the health department.
Efforts by this correspondent to seek comments of Health Secretary Mushtaq Jadoon for this story didn’t materialize despite attempts to contact him.