PESHAWAR: The Board of Governors (BoG) of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) has appointed senior member of the management cadre, Dr Tahir Nadeem Khan, as Hospital Director for a period of five years.
Dr Tahir Nadeem held many positions in his career but recently served as Director General Health Services of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and was unceremoniously removed, for reasons best known to him and his boss, Health Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra. He was stated to be an officer of repute but was largely accused of working slowly even during the coronavirus pandemic, prompting the health minister to replace him. People close to Dr Tahir Nadeem, however, claimed the reason for his slow work was that he wanted to do each and every work as per law and on merit. There were allegations that people known for their corrupt practices in the Health Department managed to get key positions in the department when Dr Tahir Nadeem was made DG Health Services. Dr Tahir Nadeem graduated from Khyber Medical College (KMC) Peshawar in 1984 and did Masters in Health Management, Planning & Policy in 1996 from Nuffield Institute for Health, University of Leeds United Kingdom. He has a vast experience of health care providers, professional health systems designer & manager. His core competencies are institutional, financial (including budgeting) management, Expenditure Control and Accounting Systems Management; Health Programs and Project Planning; Official, Supply Chain Management); Human Resource Planning, Management and Development; Curricula Development, Teaching and Training; Monitoring, Evaluation & Performance Management of Health Systems and Health Human Resource; Sustainable Business Planning and Development; Clients Satisfaction and Grievances Redressal; Hospital Waste Management; Business and Legal Communication; Comprehension and Compliance of Applicable Legal Frameworks; Supervision of Civil Engineering Works, Maintenance and Repair of Buildings, Machinery and Equipment. The KTH has been in crisis for some time and it is widely believed that if so-called health reforms of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government had damaged any medical institution that is KTH. There are so many issues but the biggest challenge to the newly appointed Dean is the mushroom number of associations of the hospital employees, mostly using for blackmailing purposes.
Also, there had neither been a permanent medical nor hospital director in KTH for quite a long time, apparently due to the ineffective role of the BoG and court litigations. That created a series of administrative issues in the hospital and there has been no check on faculty members and other employees of the hospital. Most of them come to the hospital and leave at will. Even nobody bothers to check the attendance of the doctors at the outpatient department (OPDs) as the hospital is being run on ad hoc basis. The government provided Rs700 million for the hospital renovation and Rs500 million for its air-conditioning in 2016. There are allegations that some of the resources were not utilised properly while the renovation work was deliberately delayed and is yet to be completed. Dr Tahir Nadeem will need to neutralise all associations and utilise their services for patients.