QHAMC shuts private practices for senior staff

By Bureau report
July 01, 2022

PESHAWAR: Violating the Medical Teaching Institution Reforms Act 2014 and Policy Board, the board of governors of Qazi Hussain Ahmad Medical Complex (QHAMC) Nowshera has decided to close the institution-based private practice of senior doctors in the hospital, saying that only the assistant professors will be allowed to continue IBP.

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“Due to the fewer patients’ influx during IBP clinic timings (3pm to 7pm), the BoG decided that only the assistant professors can conduct IBP, while other consultants above the assistant professors (associate professors and professors) should stop IBP with immediate effect, and the assistant professors will be paid Rs150,000 as IBP incentive per month,” the BoG of QHAMC announced in a notification.

The BoG is already under fire for reversing all decisions of the previous board, headed by a noted physician and former Dean Khyber Medical College (KMC) Prof Dr Nurul Iman.

All the board members are closely associated with former defence minister Pervez Khattak, and were reportedly made the board members on his personal strict instructions. It was not possible even for the chief minister and his health minister Taimur Jhagra to disagree with Pervez Khattak. Pervez Khattak is presently working as provincial president of Pakistan Tenreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Except for the two members of the board, the remaining people are having no experience in the health services. One of them is stated to be a milkman and the BoG chairman has tasked him to ensure staff attendance.

When reached, chairman BoG Mohammad Ishfaq Khan confirmed to have stopped IBP of the senior doctors, arguing that it was not possible for them to pay IBP insensitive to them.

“The hospital can’t pay Rs300,000 just for nothing to a professor as IBP incentive,” Ishfaq Khan argued.

He seemed unaware of the MTI Act and Policy Board, even though he retired as health secretary and twice served as a member of the Public Service Commission.

Ishfaq Khan had a long close association with Pervez Khattak. When Pervez Khattak was minister of irrigation, Ishfaq Khan was secretary irrigation. Later when Pervez Khattak was made chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he appointed Ishfaq Khan as his principal secretary. After his retirement, Pervez Khattak helped him become a member of the Public Service Commission and then extended his tenure for a second time after he completed his first term.

The chairman, however, did not know that under the MTI Act, it is mandatory for the dean, medical director and all chairpersons of the departments to join IBP.

The previous board had encouraged and facilitated IBP and had restored patients’ trust in the IBP and doctors there.

It led to a heated debate among doctors serving in other MTIs, terming it a discrimination.

Interestingly, the BoG had given the charge of dean and hospital director to Dr Anwar Wazir. Dr Anwar Wazir, during his service in Nowshera, had applied for almost all positions advertised there but never shortlisted due to reasons best known to him.

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