PESHAWAR: Chairman, Board of Governors (HMC), Sahibzada Mohammad Saeed and faculty members of Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) paid tribute to outgoing head of Radiology Department Prof Dr Mohammad Nawaz Khan for his services to the patients and equipping his department with state-of-the-art equipment before his retirement. It seemed that the government, keeping in view his services and his clean career, decided to honour him by appointing him as member of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission (PSC) (technical health sector) for a period of three years. The HMC administration hosted a farewell function in the honour of Prof Dr Mohammad Nawaz Khan where Sahibzada Saeed rewarded him with the ‘Excellent Award” for his outstanding services of patients. Besides Sahibzada Saeed, HMC Medical Director Prof Dr Shehzad Akbar also paid tribute to Prof Nawaz and praised him for his services. They acknowledged Prof Nawaz’s contribution in equipping the department with the latest diagnostic equipment such MRI and CT Scan. The department in HMC was in a poor state of affairs when Prof Nawaz became its head a few years ago. The CT Scan machine was installed in 1997 in HMC and often used to be out of order. Some influential people in the hospital as well as in the Health Department were in favour of repairing the same machine instead of purchasing the new one as they wanted to make money in the name of repair every year. Interestingly, Sahibzada Saeed had approved Rs280 million in 2012 when he was secretary finance during the caretaker government for purchase of MRI and CT scan machines for HMC. A sum of Rs180 million was earmarked for the purchase of MRI and Rs10 million for CT Scan machine in the budget. The government had also given Rs150 million for immediate purchase of necessary items for the Radiology Department of the hospital. The hospital administration had advertised the tender about purchase of the machines in the papers and two firms were selected for taking part in the bidding. When all legal and technical procedures were fulfilled, the purchase committee decided that bidding for selection of one company offering the lowest rates would be opened. However, an influential figure at the Chief Minister’s Complaint Cell used tactics to get one of the firms for the contract worth Rs280 million for supplying the machines. The same firm, which he had favoured, wasn’t even shortlisted for the bidding. After realising that the firm he had favoured would not get the contract, he tried to sabotage the whole purchase process. And the funds were utilised when Sahibzada Saeed retired from government service and became chairman BoG of HMC in 2015. Prof Nawaz alone fought this long battle against influential people but finally appeared triumphant and got HMC the latest MRI machine of 1.5 Tesla Ingina Philips and CT scan of 128 slice from General Electric.
