PESHAWAR: Medical teaching institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are facing several issues including approval of budget owing to non-existence of active Boards of Governors (BoGs), according to sources.

Health department ordered removal of BoGs of 10 medical teaching institutions (MTIs) in the province on June 11 and appointed new members a day after. Many of the BoG members petitioned Peshawar High Court and obtained from it a stay order against the department’s directives.

“Currently, MTIs are virtually without BoGs as the old ones have lost their authority and the new members are yet to start work,” a senior health administrator told Dawn. He said that BoGs played vital role in MTIs as they were required to approve budget for their respective institutions regarding procurement of medicines, equipment and other stuff but those matters would suffer as they were expect budgetary allocation in a week or two.

He said that each MTI received one-line budget from finance department. “We need BoGs to approve our internal budget. As per the existing situation, we fear that MTIs will face more issues, especially in approval of budget for the next financial year,” he added.

Govt has removed old members of boards and new ones haven’t assumed charge

Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act was passed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in 2015 after which it was enforced in teaching hospitals and their affiliated medical and dental colleges. According to the law, the MTI-covered institutions are governed by BoGs. The members of BoGs are nominated by the government.

MTIs have top positions including medical, hospital and finance and nursing directors, who run the institutions as per decisions of BoGs.

Sources said that hospital director was responsible for most of the affairs including purchases of drugs and equipments, etc. However, he has limited financial powers and can approve scheme worth Rs2.5 million or a bit more, depending on approval of BoGs. But for bigger schemes, the approval of board is must.

They said that in some MTIs, BoGs might allow hospital director to accord approval to big programmes. In each MTI, BoG grants financial authority and fixes their limits but for overall budgetary approval, boards are important to be there.

“Even if the government allocates budget for MTIs, we don’t have BoGs to approve our internal budget,” they said. They added that they prepared a programme along with expenditure that was placed before BoG for approval but there was complete disarray as the old members were removed and the new ones were yet to assume charge due to stay order issued by court.

“We are afraid that MTIs can face problem in issuance of salaries to staff as we have experienced during the era of caretaker government,” they said.

In some MTIs, old members have stopped coming to their respective institutions but the newly-appointed people are yet to start work that has created an uncertainty.

Meanwhile, some of the freshly-appointed members told Dawn that they had not received their appointment letters from the health department as yet and came to know about their nomination through media.

“Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur should appoint chairmen from the members of MTIs already announced so that they can start work. Under the law, the search and nomination council appoint BoG members but chairmen are announced by the chief minister. May be, chief minister is awaiting court’s decision,” they said.

The province has about 1,900 health facilities but patients prefer visiting MTIs to get specialised healthcare services, therefore, the government should resolve the issues so that these teaching hospitals start full-scale activities.

Many of the MTIs are planning to purchase high-tech equipment like MRI and CT scan for which they need BoGs to be in place.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2024