be for a few weeks so the board of governors of each tertiary care hospital could make appointments for their respective hospitals,” a senior official of the health department said.
He said the Board of Governors (BoGs) would be finalised by the end of February and then a search committee would be formed to appoint hospital directors and medical directors for the hospitals.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on January 14 had passed the new law to give autonomy to the public sector teaching institutions and affiliated hospitals to improve medical education and patient care.
It was notified on January 19 after being signed by the governor but the government took its time to implement it. It has also led a debate among the doctors whether the existing Management Councils (MCs) and several other committees formed under MCs had any legal status as these councils and committees were formed under the previous Autonomy Law of 2002 that had been repealed by the Health and Medical Institutions and Regulations Act 2015.
When reached on phone, provincial Health Secretary Mushtaq Ahmad Jadoon confirmed that the present set up in the four teaching hospitals would be replaced. He said people would be chosen from among the doctors to replace the present heads of hospitals.
He said the new set up would work on acting charge basis for a few days or weeks till the notification of the new law and the advertisement of all the positions by the BoGs. “It is a matter of few days now. The new law would soon be implemented in the medical and teaching institutions. Then the BoGs would make appointments for these institutions,” Mushtaq Jadoon said.
In the new law, the hospital directors would have more powers and functions instead of medical directors. They would handle all financial matters and major purchases while medical directors would work for improving services, outpatients departments, wards and operation theatres as per proposals of heads of different units. The hospital management committees, which will comprise heads of departments and units, would make policy for the hospitals.