PHC reserves verdict in petitions against health reforms act

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday reserved verdict in several petitions that had challenged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIA) 2015.

The five-member larger bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel, Justice Nisar Hussain, Justice Irshad Qaiser, Justice Syed Afsar Shah and Justice Muhammad Younas Thaheem reserved the verdict after the petitioners’ and the provincial government lawyers completed arguments.

The lawyers for several petitioners, who have challenged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIA) 2015, told the bench that the law was unconstitutional and aimed at bringing autonomous medical teaching institutions under the control of provincial government through Board of Governors (BoGs).

They contended that the impugned law was in conflict with the Civil Servants Act 1973 as the terms and conditions of services of civil servants working in these medical teaching institutions were changed in an arbitrary manner.

Continuing his arguments, the petitioners’ lawyer, Shumail Ahmad Butt submitted that first the provincial legislators had no power to repeal the Medical and Health Institutions and Regulation of Health Care Service Ordinance, 2002. He said the medical services and research in medical field existed in the Federal Legislative List.

He stated that even after amendments to the law, the servants status working in the institution would not affect, but under the MTIA 2015 if the servants didn’t want to merge as employees of the teaching hospitals they would be declared civil servants and placed in the surplus pool.

The lawyer submitted that the provincial government had verbally stated that there was no surplus pool, but the government didn’t amend the relevant section in the act to remove the surplus pool.

He also pointed out that under the new act, the provincial government had given enough incentives to the doctors who will perform 12 hours duty in hospitals, but there was no incentive in the act to over 18,000 paramedics working in the government hospitals.

The lawyer submitted that the provincial government through the new law wouldcompensate a few doctors and had allocated a huge amount of Rs3.8 billion for them.

Another lawyer for the petitioners, Mian Muhibullah Kakakhel submitted that the powerful bureaucracy wanted to restore its previous powers in the teaching institutions and for that purpose, the act was passed and BoGs replaced the former management committees of four Medical Teaching Institutions (MTIs).

He added that board members were appointed through dubious procedure of a search and nomination council.

He said the BoGs were also empowered to prescribe procedure for appointment, terms and conditions of service, disciplinary matter and other service matters for the employees of the MTIs, which was in violation to the Civil Servants Act.

The lawyer said there were 10 MTIs in the province, but the government had applied the impugned act to only four - Ayub Teaching Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar, Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar and Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar- which showed malafide on part of the government.

During hearing, the judges questioned that how it would be possible for the government to run the Out-Patient Department (OPD) and Institution-Based Practice (IBP) in the government hospitals at the same time.

“It will create a sense of deprivation among the patients when the rich people would acquire medical treatment from senior doctors and the poor patients from junior doctors in the same time in government hospital,” Justice Muhammad Younas Thaheem observed.

Defending the MTIA 2015, Arshad Ali, representing the provincial government, submitted that the provincial government had done away with the post of the chief executive of MTI as well as the management council and replaced it with BoGs, which was an autonomous body.

He said the provincial government through the law wanted to extend the timing of OPDs from five hours to eight or more hours as in government hospitals there were no senior doctor in OPD for the patients after 12pm and the poor patients had to suffer.

In his arguments in the petitions, Advocate General Lateef Yousafzai argued that the act was not in conflict with any of the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution and thus the high court could not exercise its powers of judicial review of the law.