Chief executives, MSs of four tertiary hospitals to be changed

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department has decided to replace the present chief executives and medical superintendents of the four tertiary care hospitals in Peshawar and Abbottabad and appoint medical and health directors in their place for a short period until competent people from the market are hired, official sources told The News on Monday.
Also, it has been realised that some of the chief executives after sensing their replacement following the recently adopted Health and Medical Institutions and Regulations Act 2015 had started unlawful recruitment, fast-track promotions of their blue-eyed doctors and making purchases of their choice in the hospitals. This prompted the government to stop all types of recruitment, promotions and setting up new units in the hospitals.
The present chief executives were also appointed on acting charge basis as the government wanted to advertise these positions to hire people from the market. The government, however, couldn’t do so due to a host of reasons and the chief executives worked for almost a year in an acting capacity.
Some of them weren’t even able to properly run their units and that’s why hospital affairs and patient care under their administration deteriorated. The government initially planned to replace chief executives and medical superintendents of the four tertiary care hospitals, including the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) in Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) in Abbottabad.
Under the Health and Medical Institutions and Regulations Act 2014, the hospital director would work in place of medical superintendent while medical director would replace the chief executive.
According to officials of the health department, the arrangement of appointing medical directors and hospitals directors would be for a short time. “The medical directors and health directors would work for a few days or may be for a few weeks so the board of governors of each tertiary care hospital could make appointments for their respective hospitals,” a senior official of the health department said.
He said the Board of Governors (BoGs) would be finalised by the end of February and then a search committee would be formed to appoint hospital directors and medical directors for the hospitals.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on January 14 had passed the new law to give autonomy to the public sector teaching institutions and affiliated hospitals to improve medical education and patient care.
It was notified on January 19 after being signed by the governor but the government took its time to implement it. It has also led a debate among the doctors whether the existing Management Councils (MCs) and several other committees formed under MCs had any legal status as these councils and committees were formed under the previous Autonomy Law of 2002 that had been repealed by the Health and Medical Institutions and Regulations Act 2015.
When reached on phone, provincial Health Secretary Mushtaq Ahmad Jadoon confirmed that the present set up in the four teaching hospitals would be replaced. He said people would be chosen from among the doctors to replace the present heads of hospitals.
He said the new set up would work on acting charge basis for a few days or weeks till the notification of the new law and the advertisement of all the positions by the BoGs. “It is a matter of few days now. The new law would soon be implemented in the medical and teaching institutions. Then the BoGs would make appointments for these institutions,” Mushtaq Jadoon said.
In the new law, the hospital directors would have more powers and functions instead of medical directors. They would handle all financial matters and major purchases while medical directors would work for improving services, outpatients departments, wards and operation theatres as per proposals of heads of different units. The hospital management committees, which will comprise heads of departments and units, would make policy for the hospitals.