Caretaker CM denies extension to BoGs

PESHAWAR: As expected, the caretaker Chief Minister retired Justice Dost Mohammad Khan denied giving extension to the previous Board of Governors (BoGs) appointed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government and decided to appoint new boards for all eight medical and teaching institutions of the province.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had expressed his disappointment over performance of the BoGs and ordered that these be disbanded on June 6, 2018.

He had given three weeks to the previous boards to conclude work, which was supposed to end on June 30, 2018.

“On account of unsatisfactory performance of the Board of Governors created for management of different hospitals, the same are dissolved and the Chief Secretary, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is directed to prepare and move a summary for the purposes of constituting new boards. Till the time new government takes over such boards may even include any member of the present boards as decided by the caretaker chief minister. However, in the meantime, for the purposes of continuity of the governance of the hospitals, the present boards shall continue functioning up to three weeks,” read the judgment by two-member bench of Justice Saqib Nisar and Justice Mushir Alam at the Supreme Court registry of Peshawar. The court had ordered dissolution of the BoGs of all MTIs by or before June 30, 2018. The BoGs for an interim period are being constituted until a new elected government takes over.

The chief justice had left it to the caretaker chief minister to select interim BoGs. He was authorized to take members from the previous BoGs, though it was not necessary and there was no bar on that as well.

The court had decided that constitution of interim boards will bypass the search and nomination council and will be done by the caretaker chief minister through his order.

“The constitution of proper BoGs by the next political government whenever it comes into power through the search and nomination council in accordance with procedure laid down in Section 8 of the Act,” said the judgment.

Well-placed sources at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat told The News that the caretaker chief minister has approved some of the names for different boards and would complete the process within two days. “The chief minister has approved most of the names and the provincial Health Department is likely to announce them on Monday,” a senior government official told The News on Friday.

Pleading anonymity, he said the new boards are expected to be appointed for a period of one month or so.

Also, he said no member has been included from the previous boards in the interim set up. He added that all those approved for the new boards were non-political and had contributions in their respective professions.

“Most of the people selected for the interim set up are retired professors, retired doctors, retired judges, retired civil servants and journalists. They will be chosen for an interim period,” said the government official. According to sources, retired cardiologist, Dr Hafizullah, will also be accommodated in the interim set up.

Besides others, the names of retired ophthalmologist, Prof Ziaul Islam, retired bureaucrat Attaullah Toru were also approved for inclusion in the interim set up to supervise financial and administrative affairs of the hospitals and medical colleges. The court is stated to have dissolved the recently constituted BoG for the long-delayed Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC).

The board members had chosen Dr Nausherwan Burki as chairman and had just started the process of recruitment and procurement of equipment.

According to sources, a retired cardiologist accused of occupying multiple important positions at one time and delaying the completion of the PIC, was trying to become chairman of its BoG.

The tertiary care public sector hospitals in KP were suffering from serious administrative issues after people learnt that the previous BoGs are unlikely to get an extension.

After coming into power in the 2013 general election, the PTI-led government had introduced health reforms under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act 2015 (MTI) and granted financial and administrative autonomy to the medical and teaching institutions.

It took the government almost a year to implement the reforms due to strong resistance by the health workers and litigation in the court against the new system.

It replaced the previous administrative set-up of chief executives and medical superintendents with medical directors and hospital directors, respectively. Unlike the previous system, all powers were transferred to the BoGs instead of chief executives.

However, during an audit and evaluation survey conducted by a third party, numerous deficiencies and shortcomings were identified in the health delivery system of the MTIs in the province.

Sources told The News that except Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), the remaining hospitals were put in the list of ‘requiring much more’ to achieve the targets.

“Among all the institutions, HMC was on top in terms of performance and improvement in patient care. Its chairman BoG, Sahibzada Saeed and his medical director Prof Shehzad Akbar had done a tremendous job,” a government official privy to the evaluation survey told The News.