PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government may face some hurdles from the opposition parties as it is reportedly planning to give a three-year extension to the existing boards of governors (BoGs), which were formed three years ago for running the administrative and financial affairs of the public sector tertiary care hospitals of the province.
Also, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), in a bid to ensure free, fair and transparent election in the country, has stopped the federal and provincial governments from new recruitment ?after April 1, 2018.
The present boards are going to complete the stipulated three-year tenure in May this year. Some government officials argued the PTI-led government might face some legal challenges if it violated the ECP directive and extended tenure of the present BoGs.
After coming into power in the 2013 general election, the PTI-led government had introduced its much-trumpeted 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 its reforms due to strong resistance by the health workers and litigations in the court against the new system.
It replaced the previous administrative set-up of chief executives and medical superintendents with medical directors and hospitals, respectively.
Unlike the previous system, all powers were transferred to the board of governors 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 KP.
Sources told The News that except the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), where a lot has to be done for improving the system, the remaining hospitals were put in the list of ‘requiring much more’ to achieve the targets.
The government has injected a huge amount into these hospitals where dozens of managers were recruited on high salaries but the results are still stated to be unsatisfactory.
According to the sources, a US-based chest physician, Dr Nausherwan Burki, who authored the health reforms, desired to get extension to the present board of governors, replacing some of the members. He is cousin of PTI Chairman Imran Khan.
“Dr Burki wanted to a three-year extension to the existing boards at any cost. Some of the people advised him that getting three-year extension would be unethical as in case the next government in KP was of other political parties and one doesn’t know if the next government would be willing to continue the same system installed by PTI,” said a cabinet member in Peshawar.
Pleading anonymity, he said they suggested Dr Burki that it was better the present boards to get a four or five months extension in the tenure so they could continue till the new government is installed in the province. “Dr Burki didn’t agree to this argument and he wanted to involve the PTI chairman,” said the cabinet member.
Other people close to these developments also confirmed that some people including Dr Burki desired to get an extension but it has not been decided yet.
One government official, privy to these developments, told The News that the Health Department gave a better advise to Dr Nausherwan Burki and his team about their future line of action. “As far as I am aware of the developments, the Health Department had told Dr Burki and his team that there were two legal ways to continue in future. The first procedure was to get a three-year extension from the present government. Second was to form a search and nomination committee and choose new members for the boards and appoint them for the next three years,” said a senior government official.
However, only the cabinet was authorised to decide future of the present boards, wither it wanted to grant it an extension or select new members for all the boards.
Under the rules, the government is authorised to extend the board of governors for another term (three years). The cabinet had recently decided that one person at a time would remain part of one board only.
Interestingly, Dr Nausherwan Burki is chairman of the BoG of the Lady Reading Hospital and the Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC),
350-bedded hospital launched 15 years but is yet to be completed.
When reached for his official comments, provincial Secretary Health Mohammad Abid Majeed told The News that he had moved a summary to the government whether it wanted to extend the present BoGs or form search and nomination committee to suggest new members.