LAHORE: As many as 17 out of total 24 autonomous medical and teaching institutes of Punjab had been working without boards of management (BoMs) for a year, exposing the ‘incompetence’ of Health Minister Khwaja Salman Rafique and the relevant authorities as the institutes were being run by the temporarily constituted administrative committees.

The committees were formed after the expiry of the tenure of BoMs of respective institutes as a stop-gap arrangement by the then caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi.

Of them, the five major teaching institutes were operating in the city - Mayo Hospital, Services Hospital, Lahore General Hospital, Punjab Dental Hospital and Institute of Public Health.

The other institutes included Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology, Shaikh Zayed Medical College, Rahim Yar Khan, Sargodha Medical College, Nawaz Sharif Medical College, Gujrat, Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, Children Hospital Faisalabad, Sahiwal Medical College etc.

Admin committees formed after expiry of boards tenure to run institutes as stop-gap arrangement

An official privy to the development said the health authorities ‘dumped’ the Punjab Medical and Health Institutions Act 2003 for a brief period and constituted administrative committees parallel to the high-powered boards to get decisions of choice, most of them related to the financial matters.

Under the act, he said, all the medical and attached teaching hospitals of the province were declared ‘autonomous’ with a prime objective of operating them by the high-powered BoMs to ensure transparency.

It was a mandatory legal requirement under the law to constitute the BoMs, the top body comprising nearly nine members each to discharge core functions of all the medical and teaching institutes of Punjab.

The section 5 (1) of the Act reads, “The administration and management of the affairs of a Medical Institution shall vest in the Board appointed by the government in accordance with the provisions of this Act”.

The official said the tenure of the BoMs of all 17 medical institutes expired during the the last caretaker government in 2023.

He said the then CM Mohsin Naqvi ‘deliberately’ halted the process of re-constitution of the BoMs of the institutes as he wanted to grab unbridled powers through a bunch of few members of the administrative committees during the revamping of the hospitals.

Following his order, the official said, the then health secretary Ali Jan delayed the process of re-constitution of the boards and formed administrative committees of the respective institutes as a stop-gap arrangement.

The committees consisted of the health secretary, the principal of the respective institute, medical superintendent, commissioner of the concerned division and a representative from the finance department.

It was too easy for the CM and the health authorities to get the orders related to financial handling and other requirements of choice implemented while bypassing the board and other relevant procedures, the official said.

Whereas the Act says, the board of a medical institution shall be the principal governing body and shall comprise health secretary or his representative not below the rank of additional secretary, finance secretary or his representative not below the rank of additional secretary, the principal/head of the institution, the chairman of the academic council.

Similarly, it shall have six non-official members including at least two women from amongst eminent retired professors of medical colleges, renowned retired doctors from the general cadre, management experts/retired civil and military officers, distinguished citizens, notable jurists and financial experts.

The medical superintendent of the main teaching hospital shall be the secretary of the board, according to the Act.

The selection of non-official members shall be made from a panel of three individuals, for each vacancy, prepared by the health department and approved by the Punjab government. The non-official members shall hold office for a term of four years and shall be eligible for reappointment.

Under the laid-down procedure, the chairman of the board shall be elected by all the members of the board from amongst the non-official members at the first meeting.

According to official documents, the tenure of the BoM of the postgraduate medical institute (PGMI)/LGH expired on July 5, 2023, of Services Institute of Medical Sciences/Services Hospital Lahore expired on Dec 1, 2023, IPH on Dec 15, 2023, Mayo Hospital (Aug 10, 2023), Punjab Dental Hospital on Aug 21, 2023, etc.

The official said Maryam Nawaz became CM in February this year and she was still kept in the dark about the non-functioning of the boards of the 17 autonomous institutes of the province.

The Punjab health minister told Dawn that the government is all set to initiate process for the reconstitution of all the dysfunctional boards on a priority basis.

He said the government wants to nominate well-reputed members in order to make the BoMs more effective than the past ones.

About the delay, Khwaja Salman Rafique said the government recently removed health secretary Ali Jan and replaced him by a new one, taking it one of the major reasons [for the delay].

“We would take a few weeks to complete the process for the formation of new BoMs,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2024