LAHORE: Former chief secretary and current chairman of the Lahore Gymkhana Club, Salman Siddique, has resigned as the commissioner of the Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) reportedly in protest against the amendment to the law aimed at compromising the commission’s autonomy.

The Punjab Assembly passed the Punjab Healthcare Commission (Amendment) Bill 2024 on June 10, which empowers the government to remove the commission and gives the unbridled powers to it, abolishing the 14-year-long independent status of the PHC that started during the tenure of the then chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, now the prime minister.

Mr Siddique was one of the nine commissioners running the financial and administrative affairs of the PHC Commission from October 2022.

An official, privy to the development, says Salman Siddique tendered his resignation some days back and it is being taken as the ‘first drop of the rain’ as more such resignations are expected in the days to come for the same reason.

He alleges that Punjab Health Secretary Ali Jan played a role to curtail the PHC independence under nine commissioners as he was trying hard for the last many months to get access to the financial and administrative affairs of the commission.

The official says the PHC’s commissioners were trying to resist the frequent moves made by the health secretary but the passage of the bill foiled their efforts.

In the wake of the bill passed by the assembly, most of the PHC’s commissioners believe that the government has actually dumped the idea of Shehbaz Sharif of making the commission independent to govern both the public and private sector health facilities without the interference of the government departments, including the health authorities.

In the wake of the amendments, the government has been vested with powers to remove the PHC chairperson any time for any reason.

The other commissioners of the PHC include Justice (retired) Bilal Khan, Dr Talat Afza, Prof Dr Riaz Tasnim, journalist Sami Ibrahim, Shafiq Pitafi, Umar Farooq Khan, Azeemuddin Zahid Lakhvi and Hamesh Khan (the financial expert).

The commissioners were nominated by a selection committee after a due process and then notified under Section 5 read with Section 6 of the Punjab Healthcare Commission Act 2010 by the Punjab Health Department in October 2022 for a term of three year.

The official, who has the inside information, says another major reason behind change to the law by the government is the presence of journalist Sami Ibrahim who has sympathies allegedly with the PTI and Mr Lakhvi, a leader of the party.

He says the PHC as an independent department had also imposed heavy fines on the public sector medical and teaching facilities and hospitals for malpractices, making the health authorities answerable in ensuring standard healthcare treatment to the patients.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2024