Victimisation seen behind senior doctor’s repatriation to Health Dept

PESHAWAR: Prof Dr Nurul Iman, former dean of the Khyber Medical College (KMC) on Friday gave his joining at the provincial Health Department.

He had submitted his departure on Thursday to give arrival at the department.

According to officials of the hospital, it was sad day for all of them to say goodbye to Prof Nurul Iman who spent his life in serving the institution, patients and training hundreds of doctors.

The Board of Governors (BoG) of the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) had issued his repatriation from the hospital to the Health Department.

There are senior faculty members serving in the college and hospital as civil servants but none of them, except for Prof Nurul Iman was sent to the Health Department.

He is probably the first faculty member, among the civil servants, whose services were returned to the Health Department, where he will do nothing and nobody benefit from services of a foreign-qualified senior physician.

The BoG didn’t mention any cogent reason for his repatriation, except that he had not sought an NOC from the provincial Health Department before joining the Khyber Medical College (KMC) as it’s dean.

Prof Nurul Iman, however, denied these reports, saying he had sought an NOC prior his joining of the KMC as a dean.

He said the NOC was issued to him in January 2016 by the Health Department for the post of KMC dean. He was then selected and then took over the Dean post in April 2017.

Insiders in KTH told The News that Prof Nurul Iman was not like most of the faculty members and he used to raise his voice against alleged irregularities and mismanagement in the tertiary care hospital, and particularly the role of some of the BoG members.

Soon after the incident of death of seven patients due to oxygen gas shortage in the hospital, the BoG had a meeting on December 9, 2020 and instead of discussing the worst incident in the history of the KTH as a single point agenda and to address its own failures and shortcomings, the board members seemed more interested in repatriating Prof Noorul Iman.

They probably felt that they may be removed and that this might be their last meeting and saw this as the last chance to get rid of Prof Noorul Iman who was genuinely critical of the performance of BoG.

The decision aroused a strong reaction from the doctor community in the province and many of them termed its victimisation of the senior doctors.

Some of the faculty members said his unceremonious departure from the hospital where he had worked for more than two decades, hurt the doctor community.

“The lame excuse that he was a civil servant, that is why he was repatriated, cannot be accepted as there are other civil servants in the faculty and scores of civil servants as non-faculty employees.

This selective application speaks volumes for the intentions and the integrity of BoG and In-charge of the faculty of KTH,” said one senior faculty member in KTH.

Another senior faculty member in the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) said selective application of MTI rules only applying it to critics is very damaging and tarnishing the image of reforms and the man behind these reforms.

“The MTIs should repatriate all the government or civil servants if justice and rule of law are to be followed.

Targeting Prof Nurul Iman who is probably still a staunch supporter of MTI reforms is very unfair and discriminatory,” he said.