According to a report in Dawn, Dr Mian Tahir Shah, a senior surgeon at the KTH, sent his resignation to the health secretary citing personal reasons. However, sources at the hospital informed media that Dr Shah resigned due to the poor state of the hospital.
In 2015, the PTI-led government had passed the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act under which boards of governors (BoG) were created for three teaching hospitals.
Dr Tahir Shah, who currently works as a consultant surgeon in Saudi Arabia, became a member of the BoG of Khyber Teaching Hospital in 2018.
According to sources cited in Dawn, the BoG’s performance has also been questionable. Three members of the board are non-medical people without any knowledge about how hospitals operate.
Sources said that the members of the board would delay their responses to KTH, interfere in the hospital by influencing managerial decisions, and once caused the hospital to fail in the purchase of important machinery.
They said that the board would waste time over less important issues like staff conflict resolutions, promotions, salary increase etc.
Sources also said that this alienated the pro-reforms people present in the board. Recently, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan carried out inspection of the facility and Khyber Medical College, whose teaching affiliate is KTH, fared poorly.