Health Diary: Of Health deptt’s lethargy and woes of private medical colleges

PESHAWAR: There seems no end to the sufferings of the owners of private medical colleges as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department has yet to issue a notification and declare the District Headquarters Hospitals (DHQs) as teaching cadre health facilities.

It is a long and painful story that in fact has better exposed the provincial health department and its performance.

The Health Foundation after a marathon process concluded the affiliation procedure of private medical training institutions in two years.

It had taken two years for the Health Foundation to issue letters and allow the private medical colleges to utilise the public sector hospitals (DHQs) in four districts.

Zia Medical College (ZMC) was allotted the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Mardan for teaching purposes, Jinnah Medical College (JMC) in Peshawar will use the DHQ Charsadda while the DHQ Hospital in Timergara in Lower Dir was declared as a teaching institution for Zaib Medical College (ZMC).

The private sector medical colleges thought their sufferings had ended after they signed agreements with the Health Foundation. They were told to approach the provincial Health Department now as it was the relevant authority to issue a letter and declare the DHQs as teaching hospitals.

The agreements were inked in July 2021 but the Health Department is yet to issue a letter and declare the district headquarters hospital as teaching hospitals.

Interestingly, some members of the private sector colleges personally went to the Health department to learn about the progress in their case. They were shocked and surprised when they came to know from some officials there that they were not aware of any such development and had not received any such letter from the Health Department.

“I was hurt when I noticed the way our bureaucracy is working. It seems to me they are responsible to none,” said an official of the private medical college.

Pleading anonymity, they then went to the Health Foundation to request if they can send another letter to the Health department as the previous one got lost.

And the Health department has yet to come out of hibernation and issue a letter and give teaching status to the DHQs.

Some of the medical colleges suffered due to the wrong decision of the Health Foundation as it had made it mandatory for the old and new medical teaching institutions to renew their agreements.

Those required to renew their agreements were fine now and started their academic activities, but the newly established medical colleges would continue to suffer till the Health department declared the DHQs allotted to them for teaching purposes.

Among the old medical colleges, Jinnah Medical College suffered badly as the college could not enroll students in the past two years as it lacked a teaching hospital.

The college had already signed an agreement with DHQ Charsadda for using it for teaching purposes but incompetence of the Health Foundation delayed the affiliation process for two years. Interestingly, the agreements were signed with nine medical colleges, 83 nursing institutes and 181 paramedical institutes for diploma and BS programmes for affiliation with the public sector hospitals.

The medical colleges included Frontier Medical College in Abbottabad, Women Medical College Abbottabad, Abbottabad International Medical College, Jinnah Medical College in Peshawar, Al-Baironi Medical College Peshawar, Zia Medical College Mardan, Zaib Medical College in Lower Dir, and Windsor Medical College in Haripur.

Apart from these new medical colleges, five other medical colleges had already signed agreements with the Health Foundation but could not start classes due to the failure of the new BoG to approve the agreements signed by the previous one.

Only four medical colleges were allotted hospitals and it is not clear when the other colleges would be given permission to start teaching activities.

The process started in June 2019 and concluded on July 28, 2021, that too after repeated complaints and requests by the private sector that had signed agreements with the Health Foundation.

The Health Foundation was declared as an autonomous body when the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government initiated its much-publicised health reforms. It had passed two laws from the provincial assembly to introduce health reforms in the public sector.

They included the Medical and Teaching Institution Reforms Act 2015 and Health Care Commission Act 2015.

The government constituted a board of governors for each medical and teaching institution. In 2019, the provincial government decided to strengthen health services in some of the district headquarters hospitals and announced a public-private partnership programme.

It wanted the private sector to contribute to the public sector hospitals.

As per the initiative, the government wanted to allow the private sector to establish medical colleges in districts and use the DHQs as tertiary care hospitals for teaching purposes.

But the efficiency of the Health Foundation and its BoG could be gauged from the fact that the affiliation process for private medical training institutions began in June 2019 and agreements with the shortlisted parties were signed in July 2020.

The tenure of BoG that signed agreements with the private sector expired in October 2019.

The government constituted the new board in November 2020 when the issue was highlighted in the media.

The new board was not aware of the agreements the Health Foundation had signed with the private sector.

Dr Amanullah was later chosen as the new chairman BoG after removing Javed Hashmat, a banker by profession, holding him responsible for the delays.

Since he was based in Saudi Arabia, he could not spare time for the affairs of the Health Foundation.

On May 10, 2021, the BoG approved the agreements and directed the managing director of the Health Foundation to allot hospitals to the private in respective districts.