Healthcare: Committee to monitor hospital boards

Steering committee holds first meeting at Civil Secretariat

LAHORE: The first meeting of the Provincial Steering Committee for Boards of Management (BOM) of the autonomous medical institutions was held on Tuesday at the Civil Secretariat. The chief minister had earlier constituted the committee for monitoring the performance of all autonomous medical institutions.

Health Secretary Najam Ahmad Shah, Special Health Secretary Dr Sajid Mehmood Chohan, members Dr Zafar Iqbal Qureshi, Prof Dr Muhammad Saeed, Arif Saeed, Faisal Farid, Health Additional Secretary Dr Salman Shahid and Deputy Secretary (Administration) Raja Mansoor attended the meeting.

Shah said that the main purpose of the committee was to constitute effective and vibrant boards of management for the autonomous tertiary healthcare hospitals and specialised healthcare institutions. “The committee will present recommendations for the members of boards of management to the government. The committee will also monitor performance of boards on a regular basis,” he said.

Shah said that the committee was authorised to recommend to the government for addition/removal of board members. “The committee will also set targets for the boards. The main objective of this exercise is to redress administrative issues to improve performance of tertiary care hospitals and resolve the problems faced by the doctors/medical students of the medical colleges,” he said. Shah said that the government was focusing on providing quality healthcare facilities in all public sector hospitals. He said that the committee would immediately send its recommendations to constitute new boards that had completed their tenure. He said that the government wanted to raise the standard of health care.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2016.