KARACHI: The Sindh Health Care Commission (SHCC) has been without elected members and chairman for almost a year, rendering the autonomous body meant to regulate the quality and standards of healthcare services in the province ineffective, it emerged on Saturday.

The SHCC was notified on March 20, 2014 after the Sindh Assembly had passed a law — the Sindh Health Care Commission Act 2013 — on Feb 24, 2014. However, the commission was officially launched after a delay of around four years in 2018.

According to SHCC website, the commission “serves to improve the quality of healthcare services and strive to ban quackery in the Province of Sindh in all its forms and manifestations”. The law applies on all healthcare establishments, public or private hospitals, non-profit organisations, charitable hospitals, trust hospitals, semi-government and autonomous healthcare organisations.

A senior official of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) said that the commission’s responsibilities included taking up complaints against doctors and healthcare administrations.

Doctors say SHCC virtually dysfunctional in absence of elected commissioners

Sources told Dawn the commission had been experiencing hiccups in operation since its establishment.

Doctors alleged that the government wanted to control the commission that had often been used to harass doctors whereas quacks had been given a free hand.

Explaining how the commission’s elections are held, Dr Mirza Ali Azhar, one of the elected commissioners, said the body’s electoral college included representatives of the College of Family Physician and College of Physicians and Surgeons-Pakistan, president of the Sindh Private Hospitals Association, any eminent medical practitioner government nominee), president of the PMA-Sindh, two vice chancellors (government nominees) representing a public and a private university.

“Each of them nominates two candidates for the commissioner’s post on behalf of their institution/organisation. The electoral college also includes two government officials, one representing the finance department and the other legal fraternity. The elections are held at a meeting chaired by the health minister. Once seven commissioners are elected, they choose the body’s chairman. The tenure of the body is three years,” he said.

The sources said that the SHHC was currently being run by the government-appointed directors in violation of its rules and regulations.

The situation, they said, had developed on account of inordinate delays on part of the Sindh health department in releasing the notifications on the elections of elected commissioners and body’s chairman.

They also said that the health department had decided to delay the process after three

members of the PMA were elected as members of the commission last year against the expectations of the government.

No health department official was available for comments.

The sources said the tenure of the previous commission members and chairman was completed in June last year after which elections were held for the commissioners in July 2022.

The seven members elected as commissioners last year are: Dr Khalid Sheikh (retired special secretary), Dr Anees Hussain Mousvi (retired bureaucrat), Prof Sameer Qureshi (retired professor of ENT), Dr Shoaib Gangat (professor of surgery), Dr Sajjad Siddiqui (PMA), Dr Mirza Ali Azhar (PMA) and Dr Abdul Ghafoor Shoro (PMA).

“These members were notified after a delay of six to seven months in violation of rules and regulations. Then, the health department kept on delaying the election of the commission’s chairman, which was finally held on June 9, 2023. But, we are still waiting for its notification,” explained Dr Zaman Baloch, the general secretary of the PMA-Sindh.

The association was extremely concerned over the way rules and regulations were being flouted by the authorities concerned, he added.

“Whatever the government-appointed directors are doing is illegal. The doctors’ community is suffering as the commission is virtually dysfunctional. The situation has allowed police to register FIRs on any complaint,” he said.

Citing the SHCC Act, 2013, the PMA representative emphasised that the process of election should be notified immediately.

“The election of the chairman was held in the presence of the health secretary, but the result has not yet been notified. Hence, technically, the commission is without a chairman and board of commissioners for over 11 months now, which is totally against law, and unacceptable to the doctors’ community,” he said.

Mirza Azhar blamed the government for the lapse of time and said that the chairman shouldn’t be notified retrospectively. “Also, the government should release a fresh notification for the elected commissioners so that the body is given its three-year tenure under the law to perform,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2023