PESHAWAR: The policy board for medical teaching institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has directed MTI boards of governors to provide information about the staff members holding executive positions, including their names, qualifications, and employment status (permanent, acting, or deputation).

It sought to determine how long MTI deans, medical, hospital, nursing and finance directors and human resources managers have held their respective positions.

The move comes amid reports that most of those key posts in 10 MTIs are held by individuals on an “acting, additional charge or ad hoc” basis, even in Peshawar’s institutions, according to sources in the health department.

The enforcement of the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act in 2015 by the first Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government in the province led to the shifting of the administrative control of the relevant public sector hospitals to the respective BoGs.

The BoG members are taken from the private sector on the recommendation of the search and nomination council for governing MTIs and their affiliated medical and dental colleges in the province.

Earlier, these hospitals were administered by the medical and deputy superintendents appointed by the health department from among the doctors of the administrative cadre.

Under the new law, new positions of dean, medical, hospital, finance and nursing directors, managers of human resources, OPD and other affairs were created to manage the medical teaching institutions.

The people appointed to these executive positions get market-based salaries, which are far more than the payments made to the regular staff members.

Official sources told Dawn that the MTI policy board was concerned to learn that except a few, all people holding those key posts are working on a temporary basis.

They also claimed that some of those appointees didn’t have the required qualifications.

The sources said that the policy board’s move to seek information regarding those staff members was meant to decide about their appointments in accordance with the law.

Meanwhile, the MTI policy board issued a notification declaring that the position of the secretary to BoGs in every medical teaching institution was that of an assistant and not the executive’s but some of the appointees were getting far more salaries than their job description.

Under the law, the BoG secretaries will be the employee of the respective boards and will perform all secretarial office functions on the directives of the respective chairpersons. They will be responsible for convening meetings, recording their minutes, communicating with board members, and carrying out functions as declared by the boards or their chairpersons.

“The position of the secretary to the MTI BoG is that of the administrative assistant. The status and salary of the appointee salaries and their salaries would be appropriate to a secretary, albeit a highly qualified one.

When contacted, Prof Nausherwan Barki, who is overseeing the affairs of MTIs in the province, declared the move a standard administrative procedure and said that the MTI policy board had the authority to review such matters.

When asked about salary reductions for the staff members holding executive positions in MTIs or serving as secretaries to BoGs, Prof Barki said the matter fell in the jurisdiction of the medical teaching institutions themselves.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2024