Sindh government up against Centre on transfer of three Karachi hospitals
Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho has so far refused to give names for board of governors of three Karachi hospitals
March 19, 2021
- The federal government has started the process of taking over three Karachi hospitals.
- Dr Azra Pechuho says service delivery of these health institutions will be affected by the action.
- The three hospitals are to be run under a new management structure overseen by a board of governors.
KARACHI: The issue of the administrative transfer of three Karachi hospitals has once again pitted the Centre against the Sindh government, with the latter refusing to nominate its people for the Boards of Governors (BoG) which will run the affairs of these health facilities.
Meanwhile, the federal government has started the process of taking over Karachi's Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and National Institute of Child Health (NICH), which has been a matter of dispute between Sindh and Islamabad.
An independent four-member BoG has already been notified by the federal government to run the JPMC under the newly-introduced Medical Teaching Institution (MTI) Ordinance 2020.
Mushtaq Chhapra, Ronaq Lakhani, Dr Mohammad Irfan Dawoodi and Rashid Khan have been included on the board as the federation's nominees.
Commenting on the development, a spokesperson for the Sindh Health Department said that the transfer of hospitals is a complex and sub-judice matter.
"The federal government had sought names for the Board of Governors but the Sindh health minister has refused to recommend any names," they said.
‘Service delivery would be affected’
Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho has strongly opposed the new mode of management, saying it will affect the “service delivery” of the institutions.
Responding to a question, she told The News that the federal government will send new managements to run these institutions after completing their exercise, but it would badly affect the service delivery of these institutions.
She said the federal health authorities did not approach the provincial health department to formally take over the hospitals, although they visited “the JPMC and the NICVD 10, 10 times”, and later simply asked her to propose two names for the BoG.
“It never happens this way. How come they are going to run these facilities with people sitting in Islamabad and monitoring service delivery in Karachi? Actually, there were fearing contempt of court so they started the process of takeover in haste,” she claimed, adding that it was a futile exercise and would result in suffering for the people of Karachi, other cities of Sindh and entire Pakistan.
She alleged that non-medical persons were being appointed to the board to run these hospitals, which was not the way to handle and improve the service delivery of tertiary-care health facilities.
“They are asking us to send two of our people to Islamabad to be part of their board, which will be overseeing the performance and functions of these facilities from there. This is not possible,” she said.
The health minister claimed that the Supreme Court had directed the federal government to reimburse all the expenses the Sindh government had incurred on these institutions since 2011.
Dr Pechuho said there were several issues, including the service structure of employees and the status of Jinnah Sindh Medical University, which must be settled before the takeover of these institutions by the federal government.
