LAHORE: The Syndicate of the King Edward Medical University (KEMU) approved on Friday the creation of 22 non-teaching posts for the establishment of “a Turkish-model emergency department” at the Mayo Hospital, Lahore.

The Mayo Hospital is the first health facility in the province which would run its emergency services through “senior teaching cadre doctors”.

The teaching posts included one of professor, five of associate professors and 16 of assistant professors, an official told Dawn. He said under the new scheme the professor would work as director general (DG) emergency department and supervise the unit.

The idea was derived from the Turkish healthcare system some four months back when the chief minister had sent a delegation of health officials and medical experts including health secretary Najam Shah.

In the existing system, the emergency units of the public-sector teaching hospitals of Punjab are being run mostly by house officers and postgraduate students (PGs) under strengthening emergency medical services (SEMS) programme.

The official said that under SEMS programme the “senior most doctor’ available at the emergency department to attend critical patients is the medical officer.

To introduce the new Turkish model scheme, the Mayo Hospital had submitted a PC-I to the government for the sanctioning of 272 new positions including 165 for teaching faculty alone.

In addition, he said, it had also requested the finance department to approve postgraduate training programme for the emergency department of the teaching institute besides missing facilities.

However, the finance department had accorded approval to the 107 posts for the emergency department of the Mayo Hospital but refused for the senior teaching positions, citing some technical reasons.

Consequently, the KEMU decided to take up the issue at its Syndicate and finally got approval on Friday after heated debate, the official said.

According to the scheme, the posts of associate and assistant professors will be distributed between general medicine, general surgery, paediatric medicine, paediatric surgery and orthopaedic disciplines.

He further said the Syndicate of the KEMU had also approved special incentives for the senior medics, making them “highly paid” faculty of the institute with a purpose of attracting them to join emergency department under new scheme.

According to the approval granted by the Syndicate, one additional basic pay shall be given to senior register (SR), two additional basic pays for assistant professors, three for associate and four basic pays shall be granted to the professor in addition to the salary package and other incentives.

However, they would not be entitled to run private practice under agreement that would be signed while giving joining.

The official further said the King Edward Medical University is also in the process of development of curriculum for four-year structured training programme in emergency services.

After successful implementation, the health department has planned to replicate this model to all the other major teaching hospitals of the province, the official concluded.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2017