Chief executives of 3 major tertiary care hospitals removed

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Tuesday finally removed chief executives of the three major tertiary care hospitals of the province.The previous ANP-PPP government appointed them as chief executives on additional charge basis for three months, though they served for 18 months.

The chief executives of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) in Abbottabad were replaced but chief executive of the Lady Reading Hospital, Prof Dr Arshad Javaid, was allowed to continue till further order.

Dr Inayat Shah Roghani, a senior radiologist and head of radiology department of KTH, was made the chief executive of KTH. He replaced Dr Umar Ayub.

Prof Dr Mohammad Tahir, a plastic surgeon, was appointed chief executive of the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) in place of Prof Dr Mohammad Zubair Khan. Prof Dr Tahir is head of plastic surgery department of HMC, while Prof Dr Zubair is head of Dermatology Department in LRH.

Similarly, Dr Ghaniur Rahman was made chief executive of the Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) in Abbottabad. He replaced pulmonologist Prof Dr Nisar Mohammad Khan.The Health Department almost a month ago had sent a summary of senior most doctors to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak that comprised names of senior most doctors and the chief minister was supposed to select three among them as chief executives for the teaching hospitals.

The names of Prof Dr Zafar Hayat, a physician, Prof Dr Siddiqur Rahman, also a physician, and Prof Dr Inayat Shah Roghani, were sent for KTH in the summary.

Similarly, three names including Prof Isteraj Shahabi, a noted ENT specialist, Prof Dr Mohammad Tahir, and Prof Dr Noor Wazir, a physician, were sent to the chief minister to nominate one among for the post of chief executive of the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) Peshawar.

For the Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) in Abbottabad, thd summary comprised Prof Dr Abdur Rasheed, ex-principal Ayub Medical College (AMC), Prof Dr Shamim Anwar and Prof Dr Ghaniur Rahman.

The Health Department had already advertised positions of the chief executives and even short-listed some doctors for the job but the process was stopped during the care-taker government of Justice (r) Tariq Pervez.

The newly-elected PTI government was planning to replace the chief executives when Dr Hussain Ahmad Haroon of the PMA went to the court and challenged replacement of the chief executives.

The court had stopped the replacement of the exiting chief executives but in recent verdict vacated the stay order and allowed the government to appoint senior most doctors as heads for these hospitals.