Minister orders inquiry against KTH employee

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Minister Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan on Thursday ordered an inquiry against a woman employee of the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) for allegedly keeping millions of the hospital’s fund in her private bank account.

On the other hand, senior officials in KTH told The News that some other influential staff members of the hospital were equally involved in this mega scam and gave serious threats to female official if she disclosed their names.

“This is just a small proof of a large-scale corruption being done in the KTH in the past few years. The Board of Governors is very weak and has limited influence over the hospital affairs,” one senior faculty member told The News.

Pleading anonymity, he said the BoG had imposed incompetent people on the hospital and repeatedly avoided taking action against the corrupt elements.

According to the sources in the KTH, most of the people in the administration have occupied positions out of merit.

“The KTH in the past five years suffered the most, both in terms of patient care and administrative failures. The reason is that the chairman is too humble to take action against the corrupt and ensure merit-based decisions,” he said.

Also, the KTH faculty members wanted the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) or any other powerful body to conduct the inquiry as according to them, very influential people were involved in the scandal and the present committee would not be able to carry out an independent inquiry.

Health Minister Dr Hisham directed BoG Chairman Dr Faisal Sultan to suspend those involved in the scandal.

He didn’t nominate members of inquiry committee but sought its report within seven days.