KTH faculty members taken unawares by CM

PESHAWAR: The faculty members of the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) complained that Chief Minister Mahmood Khan during his surprise visit to the hospital didn’t bother to listen to them about their genuine problems.

According to senior officials, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Tuesday visited the newly constructed building of Accident and Emergency Department (A&ED).

The hospital officials received him and took him to different sections of the casualty department.

“We were happy when we saw the chief minister in the hospital as we wanted to seek his help in releasing the Rs1,764 million funds meant for procurement of equipment for the A&ED in the new building.

Unfortunately, the chief minister didn’t listen to us when we tried to request him to release the amount,” said an official of the hospital.

Pleading anonymity, he said provincial Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai who was accompanying the chief minister told them a meeting would be convened to discuss the issue.

He said the previous PTI government in March this year had approved Rs1,764 million for procurement of equipment for the A&ED

but the amount was not released by the caretaker government due to the general election.

“It was the first visit of the chief minister to the hospital and we felt as if someone had forced him to undertake the visit. It seemed he came to the hospital for photo session as he didn’t take any interest in the hospital issues or problems being faced by the patients,” said an official of the KTH administration.

He said the chief minister spent 10-15 minutes in the hospital. “We weren’t able to understand the purpose of his visit as it was neither in favour of patients nor the hospital,” he remarked.

“The hospital staff and patients are equally suffering due to the renovation work started one and half years ago. There are serious complaints against the firm that was assigned the contract for renovation and we wanted to inform the chief minister about it, but he didn’t listen to us,” said the official.

When reached for his comments, Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai told The News that they had gone there without any prior notice and the purpose of the visit was to learn about the existing services provided to the patients.

“The KTH administration informed the chief minister about the lack of funds for equipment.

He assured them to call a meeting and solve this issue. Some of the patients were satisfied with the services and others complained about lack of facilities and absence of doctors,” explained Shaukat Yousafzai.

He said the chief minister would soon convene a meeting to resolve the issue of funds to the hospital.