KTH director resigns, citing personal reasons

PTI govt’s healthcare reform agenda lagging behind

PESHAWAR: After the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), the hospital director of the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) too has tendered his resignation.

Brig (R) Dr Fazle Akbar, who was appointed the first regular hospital director of KTH on April 29, 2016, cited personal reasons for giving up the hectic and challenging job.

“I resigned due to personal reasons. I sent my resignation to the chairman Board of
Governors in September,” he confirmed to The News on Friday.

He said the government never interfered in his work, adding, there were some flaws in the system and he didn’t want to become part of it.

The retired officer with Army Medical Corps background was appointed as hospital director almost one-and-half-year after implementation of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s much-trumpeted health reforms, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical and Teaching Institutions Reforms Act 2015.

Brig (R) Fazle Akbar was the graduate of Khyber Medical College (KMC) of the 1983 session.He later joined the Pakistan Army as General Duty Medical Officer with the rank of Captain in December 1984 and served on different administrative positions posts in various medical units of the army and Pakistan Air Force (PAF).

It was expected that he would utilise his long experience of working in different military hospitals to improve patient care and administrative affairs as well as ensure transparency in financial matters of the institution.

Most of the faculty members supported his appointment and thought that having a military background the hospital director would better handle the non-teaching cadre of the hospital and ensure their attendance.

Though Brig (rtd) Fazle Akbar denied this, there were reports that he had developed differences with KTH Board of Governors (BoG) chairman Dr Faisal Sultan over certain matters.

Dr Faisal Sultan, however, denied his differences with Brig (rtd) Fazle Akbar and termed his leaving the institution a great loss.

Sources close to the outgoing hospital director told The News that he was not happy with the promotions of teaching cadre, some of them without fulfilling the criteria.Also, the Institution-Based Private Practice (IBP) was another major issue that widened the gulf between him and the BoG chairman.

The BoG of KTH had already spent lot of time in the appointment of medical director and deans of Khyber Medical College (KMC) and Khyber College of Dentistry (KCD).Some faculty members pointed out that chairman of the BoG, Dr Faisal Sultan, is always busy in his main job of handling affairs of Shaukat Khanum Cancer Memorial Hospital Lahore as its chief executive, and is therefore unable to devote time to the KTH.

The PTI-led coalition government has already completed three years in power but the BoG of KTH is yet to appoint the deans for KMC and KCD.

The BoG also didn’t make serious efforts to vacate the stay orders that the court issued against some key positions.The faculty, the students and their parents had a number of times complained about the deteriorating teaching standards of KMC and KCD, but the BoG is yet to react and appoint fulltime deans.Also, the BoG could not appoint director finance for KTH, though candidates had long been shortlisted.