PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Medical Commission, the regulator for medical education and practice in the country, is likely to de-notify the Nowshera Medical College and the attached Qazi Hussain Ahmed Medical Complex for being without a permanent board of governors, insists Prof Nausherwan Barki, who heads the policy board for medical teaching institutions in the province.

Prof Nausherwan told Dawn that he feared that the college’s de-notification would affect the learning of its students and would lead to the blocking of the specialisation training of medical officers by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan.

The health department had dissolved the permanent BoG of the Nowshera MTI on March 9 under Section 3(3) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, and tasked the Hayatabad Medical Complex with overseeing its affairs until the appointment of new board members. The board was appointed in Oct last year.

Students, trainee doctors will suffer, fears MTI board chief

Health secretary Mohammad Tahir Orakzai told Dawn that new BoG would be announced in line with the law.

He, however, didn’t specify any dates for it.

The provincial governmenthad enforced the MTIRA 2105 to grant administrative and financial autonomy to the teaching hospitals and their affiliated medical and dental colleges to improve patient care and promote under- and postgraduate medical education.

Until now, 11 tertiary care medical institutions have implemented the law and thus, being run by the BoGs selected by the Search and Nomination Council led by the health minister.

Sources in the health department said the Nowshera Medical College along with its affiliated Qazi Hussain Ahmad Medical Complex was declared MTI in August 2016 but it had yet to show any improvement, mainly due to issues between the government and BoG.

They said two years ago, the government amended the law to be able to remove BoGs or its members and replaced the NMC board in October last year.

The sources said there were issues in the NMC with regard to BoG and top appointments and therefore, the health department brought in a new board only to be removed five months later.

They said the Nowshera MTI had become operational after the enforcement of the MTIRA and didn’t face issues like the presence of civil and institutional servants in other old tertiary hospitals, which were brought under the new law and therefore, it was expected to do well. The sources said other MTIs had faced issues due to the presence of servants against whom the MTIs were not authorised to take disciplinary action.

They said civil servants were governed under the 1974 rules.

The sources said the BoGs were all-powerful bodies, which made top appointments for their respective MTIs on competitive salaries without the intervention of health department due to which the positions were regarded as ‘prestigious’.

Prof Barki, who was the brains behind MTIRA in the province, told Dawn that if the law was implemented in letter and spirit, the patient care and academic work would improve significantly.

He said for MTI BoG members, names were solicited by the minister’s office from a variety of sources before CVs of the candidates were reviewed.

The MTI policy board’s chairman added that the health minister’s office later elicited opinions about the candidates from their current colleagues or others, who knew them.

He said an attempt was made to have the people from diverse fields, including finance, administration, law, philanthropy and medicine, and the area served by the MTI on the board.

“This is the system in theory and, to some extent, in practice. It is imperfect but remember the pool of really qualified people is small and the positions are entirely voluntary,” Prof Barki said when asked why ‘good’ members aren’t available for BoGs.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2022