PESHAWAR: Medical teaching institutions have come under scathing criticism and scrutiny from doctors allegedly for violating merit in the appointments of medics, related to chairpersons and members of board of governors and deans of the respective institutions.

Senior health professionals blame Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA) for paving the way for clinicians to get selected and run the institutions arbitrarily. They allege that in most of the MTIs, clinicians are at the helm of affairs as they act as dean, vice dean and medical directors and enjoy unbridled powers. These clinicians don’t have time for medical colleges and hospitals as they are preoccupied with their clinics, they add.

“By virtue of their medical specialties, they also have connections with bureaucrats and politicians,” they said. An example is of Khyber Medical University (KMU), which has made tremendous progress during the last three years because of a vice-chancellor, who is an academician. “We appeal to government to amend MTIRA and make medical education the eligibility criteria for deans and other high positions so that they can give time to institutions,” they added.

Recent appointments in Khyber Girls Medical College (KGMC) and its affiliated Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), Peshawar, and Mardan Medical Complex (MMC), Mardan, caused unrest among doctors, who said that they fulfilled the desired criteria for the positions but the sons of professors, dean and relatives of BoG members were offered the slots despite their lack of the required qualifications.

Policy Board chairman says he has ordered inquiry into the matter

Prof Nausherwan Burki, the chairman of MTI Policy Board, when approached, said that he had ordered an inquiry into the alleged illegal appointments.

Sources said that members of Insaf Doctors Forum (IDF), an organisation affiliated with the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, were also among the beneficiaries of the positions although they did not deserve the same on merit.

Activists of Young Doctors Association (YDA) told Dawn that out-of-merit appointments were causing extreme disappointment among medics. Interviews with doctors revealed that how merit was violated allegedly in KGMC, HMC Peshawar and MMC Mardan.

In KGMC and HMC, the daughters of former dean and professors were awarded the posts at the cost of more eligible candidates with more experience and qualification, said sources. They said that during the past one year, a close relative of a dean was appointed in BPS-7 in the information technology department of the institution. In HMC, the posts of medical officers and trainee registrars were being doled out to the people associated with IDF.

Sources alleged that a doctor staying on top of merit list for the post of assistant professor in cardiology ward of HMC was ignored while the competition was between second and third ones because both enjoyed influence. An under-training doctor was allowed to appear in the test for job in medical ICU job at HMC, they said. Even questions were leaked to the blue-eyed doctors in a test held recently, they added.

“Senior officials in finance and other government departments are also not behind as they have been able to recruit their daughters-in-law,” they said.

Sources said that a doctor was denied gold medalist marks for the post of trainee registrar in dermatology department. They said that the post of assistant professor in orthopaedic was also being given allegedly to a doctor in violation of merit.

“In Mardan Medical Complex, the situation is not different where the hospital director has been included in selection committee against the law,” they said. They said that a person was selected as assistant professor of pulmonology while another with vast experience and qualification was ignored. Appointments of director human resource, assistant professor in cardiology and demonstrators drew huge criticism from the doctors, who fulfilled the criteria, they added.

A doctor said that relations with BoG members, deans and other top ranking officials were the only merit for appointment in MTIs.

Health professionals said that MTIs were yet to make any progress despite lapse of 10 years because all those years, the highest positions were held by physicians and surgeons. “On the other hand, academicians have made good progress as they give time to their work,” they added.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2024