Knownajnabee
Minister (2k+ posts)
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PESHAWAR: The government is incorporating amendment to the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms (MTIR) Law to create more competitive environment among the candidates for the posts of medical directors of the four teaching hospitals where the law is being implemented.
Under the MTIR, the medical director was a non-practicing position due to which the professors, who were eligible, couldn’t apply for the post. The government wants to attract more people and make better selection of a person, who will spearhead the government’s agenda of reforms in patients’ care.
There has been a delay of five months in appointment of medical directors at these hospitals due to which the reform process is yet to take off fully. The medical directors will run their respective institutions, including Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad upon the advice of 10-member Board of Governors.
Govt wants to attract more candidates for key posts at hospitals and make better selection
Only LRH has advertised the post of medical director and short-listed three out of 34 candidates for interview. However, it has re-advertised the post following approval of proposed amendments by the government. Under the amendment, there will be no bar on the private medical practice of the candidate.
More people will apply as earlier there was a condition that only non-practicing doctors were eligible for recruitment, sources said.
The medical directors would ensure clinical audit at the teaching hospitals to provide effective care to the patients for which people with high managerial and clinical skills, besides research papers and other studies to their credit, would be appointed, sources said. The whole edifices of the new system depended on good medical directors, they said.
The senior consultants, who have so far backed the reforms initiated by government in healthcare system, told this correspondent that lack of proper management was basic reason that had crumbled the system in the past. It was due to ill-management at the higher level that available resources couldn’t be utilised for the benefit of the patients, they said.
They argue that despite huge infrastructure and human resources, the 70-year-old system failed to cope with the issues of patients. They say that they want implementation of the new law at the earliest.
The law seeks complete overhaul of hospitals immediately and nine district headquarters hospitals later.
A physician says that failure of the teaching hospitals is evident from the statistics. He says that the 1,500-bed KTH receives Rs1billion from government every year and it did 31,000 surgeries in 2014 whereas Indus Hospital, a Karachi-based charity, operated on 45,000 people the same year, spending Rs1billion. “We need to combine clinical and human resources,” he adds.
Sources say that criteria to run for the post was three year experience as head of ward and more former professors in the teaching hospitals, who retired recently, could apply for it.
There are some indications that people, who served in the past on top positions at these hospitals, can get the slots by virtue of their qualifications but the government will then face criticism as to why these people are appointed who have headed these institutions in the past.
However, sources say that the professors, who worked on those important positions in the past, weren’t independent of the government’s influence as they would follow the new system under which they could perform. They would be accountable to only governing body, which consists of professionals with integrity, but before enforcement of the new law they were under the purview of the health department.
Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2015
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