PMA says Ebad ruined health and education sectors

Hopes new governor will appoint vice chancellors,
education board chairpersons on merit unlike his predecessor

The Pakistan Medical Association alleged on Wednesday that former Sindh governor Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad had deliberately destroyed the health and education sectors in the province and hoped that that new governor would be different.

Current and former secretary generals of the association at a press conference at the PMA House said Ebad had not appointed even a single vice chancellor or a chairperson of an education board on the basis of merit during his 13-year tenure.

They hoped that the new governor, Muhammad Zubair, would uphold merit instead of playing an anti-Sindh role.

The press conference was addressed by PMA Secretary General Dr Qaiser Sajjad and former general secretaries including Dr Shershah Syed, Dr Mirza Ali Azhar and Dr Habib-ur-Rehman Soomro.

“Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad was a foreigner, who came here as the governor, destroyed the general and health education systems in the province and then left the country,” PMA leader and eminent gynaecologist Dr Shershah Syed observed.

“He was not a local, having no interest in Sindh so he left the country as soon as he was removed from the post,” he added.

Welcoming the new governor, Dr Syed said Zubair was considered as a “literate” person and hoped that he would appoint qualified and deserving academicians as vice chancellors of general and medical varsities in Sindh.

“Most importantly, the Dow University of Health Sciences is being run by a person, who has no right to be on that post but he is there because of the unfair and illegal support of former governor.”

Dr Syed hoped that the new governor, instead of appeasing others, would make decisions on merit and play his role in promotion and progress of education and health in the province by appointing vice chancellors and chairpersons of educational boards on merit.

Another former secretary general of the PMA, Dr Habib-ur-Rehman Soomro said the association had no political motives and it was not criticising the outgoing governor because of his political affiliation, cast or ethnicity but because of the role he had played.

“Dr Ebad will be remembered as an anti-Sindh and anti-Karachi person,” he added.

Former PMA secretary general and renowned health specialist Dr Mirza Ali Azhar said the person running the DUHS had completed two tenures and as per law, he could not be appointed for a third term as vice chancellor.

The incumbent general secretary of the PMA, Dr Qaiser Sajjad, said even the chief minister was not serious in improving the health and education sectors in the province, nothing that he too had not appointed vice chancellors, chairpersons of educational boards and medical superintendents of hospitals purely on merit.