Known surgeon retires amidst promotion ‘complications’ at LRH

PESHAWAR: Another senior faculty member of the Lady Reading Hospital and a noted surgeon, Dr Syed Nadeem Ali Shah, has retired as assistant professor, apparently due to serious complexities in promotions following the promulgation of the Medical Teaching Institution Reform Act 2015.

The colleagues of the surgeon said that Dr Syed Nadeem Ali Shah has still five years to serve, as he is presently 55 years old, but majority of the doctors lost their interest in their profession, particularly those serving in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s oldest and largest health facility Lady Reading Hospital, where stringent rules were enforced on the employees compared to other MTIs.

He was amongst the top 10 graduates of Khyber Medical College (KMC) Peshawar.

“Oh! Dear Nadeem it was always painful to see the torture of a great soul, properly educated and trained, the real legacy and best student of the legendary classic Surgeon Prof Haider Shah Bukhari and the competent surgeon at LRH since decades. Your all classmates, who were never in any count and never took pains of any post-graduation, have been in BS- 20 since long. But you after so much dedication, competence and services are retiring in BS-18.

This is the injustices not only from the champions of justice at this province since a decade but indeed from those who failed to do justice in the last 2 years as well,” one of his colleagues and a senior paediatricians in LRH, Prof Mohammad Hussain, expressed his feelings about Dr Nadeem Ali Shah.

Before surgeon Dr Nadeem Ali Shah, many senior doctors in LRH opted to leave as there was no indication of getting promotion in the near future.

The Policy Board, headed by Prof Dr Ziaul Islam, has recently given some relief to the doctors when it announced that promotions would be made as per Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC) rules rather than MTI rules.

Dr Nausherwan Burki-led administration had stopped promotions for the institutional employees in MTIs and made it mandatory for joining the institution-based private clinics, even though they had not opted before.

The Policy Board, however, took note of this decision of Dr Burki and approved promotions for the institutional employees and excluded them from IBP.

The previous caretaker advisor to the chief minister on health on the very last day issued a notification saying the Policy Board was not authorised to make such administrative decisions, even though the health department had given them permission for making a policy regarding promotions and six working days rather than five days in the MTIs.

The advisor later disowned that notification, which secretary health had already termed a misunderstanding, saying they would issue another notification to exclude the institutional employees from IBP.The LRH, the 100-year old institution, didn’t flourish in KP while its sister institutions Mayo Hospital (Lahore) and the Civil Hospital (Karachi) became universities decades ago.