KP govt names principal for KGMC

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday appointed senior gynaecologist, Prof Dr Iqbal Begum as principal of the province’s lone public sector medical college for women, Khyber Girls Medical College (KGMC).
She would be the first female principal of KGMC since its establishment in 2004 by the clergy-led Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).
Dr Iqbal Begum is working as professor and head of gynae ward at the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and Khyber Girls Medical College (KGMC) in Peshawar.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had earlier appointed her as principal of the newly established Gajju Khan Medical College, Swabi and chief executive of the Swabi Group of Teaching Hospitals.
Her appointment as principal KGMC came as a surprise to most of the senior faculty members in HMC and other health institutions.
Some termed it illegal and against merit while others called it violation of recent stay order issued by the Peshawar High Court (PHC) that prevented the Board of Governors (BoGs) of the Medical and Teaching Institutions from recruitment of professors, medical directors, hospital directors and principals and deans.
“When the Act is there and the BoGs are functioning, the government has nothing to do with the appointments for medical and teaching institutions. Under the rules, these positions are supposed to be properly advertised. They must act under the Act which is more important than regulations,” a senior faculty member of a medical institution argued.
He feared that it would create complications for the BoGs and the Health Department to explain their case in the PHC.
“When the court has already stopped them from making these appointments, the government should have avoided it. But I guess some people in the PTI-led government aren’t sincere in delivering all powers and functions of the medical and teaching institutions to the BoGs,” he noted.
However, provincial Health Secretary Mushtaq Jadoon didn’t agree with this impression. He said the appointment had been made for an interim period after the previous principal of the college completed his three-year tenure.
Secondly, he said stay order of the PHC is only for the appointment of medical director and hospital directors. “Why would we go against the court order? This is an interim arrangement and she will work as principal till the post is advertised and the new principal is appointed,” the health secretary said.
He said the MTI Act was in place but since regulations had not been framed, the government could make such appointments through a notification.
Mushtaq Jadoon said after the recent amendments in the MTI Act, the post of dean would now be called only “dean”. However, Prof Dr Iqbal Begum would work as principal, he said.
The PTI government had announced the setting up of medical college in Swabi in 2013.Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar, who belongs to Swabi, had announced in 2013 that classes in the medical college would start in 2014, but this hasn’t happened.
Some critics are of the view that Dr Iqbal Begum miserably failed in her task and could not establish the college faculty.
“The only thing she had done during her tenure was to appoint around 200 people recommended by the chief minister and the speaker in the college and the hospitals there,” a senior official of the health department said.
Dr Iqbal Begum, however, denied the charges, saying she had been working as professor in grade-20 since 2003 and was denied her right to be promoted to grade-21 by certain influential people in the Health Department. “Since I am female and lacked any political affiliation, therefore I had been denied my promotion to grade-21 since 2003,” she added.
After her appointment last year, the government gave her the task of establishing faculty for the medical college and up-gradation of the adjacent hospital that would serve as tertiary care hospital for Gajju Khan Medical College.