Senate committee directs NIH to fill vacant seats

Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination has directed the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fill vacant posts.

A meeting of the standing committee was held under the chairmanship of Senator Dr. Muhammad Humayun Mohmand at the Parliament House on Wednesday.

The committee expressed serious reservations on the human resource deficit in the NIH as 350 posts were currently vacant, seriously affecting the quality of services being provided there.

“One-third of NIH’s strength is missing,” Senator Mohmand lamented.

The committee sought a reason for this, to which it was told that the delay in filling these vacant posts was caused by new regulations. It was also told that advertisements in this regard were approved 10 days ago.

Upon this, the committee chief set up a timeline for the appointment of the medical staff, and was assured by the NIH that the appointments would be made within three months.

The NIH apprised the committee that Genomic Sequencing Centres for Infectious Diseases have also been established and 75 cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus had been detected through genome sequencing till December 28.

The committee was briefed on the work, performance, budget allocation and progress on various vaccines by the NIH.

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Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr Faisal Sultan appreciated the tremendous progress made by MIH during the coronavirus pandemic. “The speedy development the NIH made during the Covid-19 crisis is commendable,” he said.

The committee also acknowledged NIH’s work and termed it as a great contribution to the health sector.

During the briefing, it was also informed that a new Act has been introduced along with new Board of Directors (BoD) comprising highly adept members.

The committee also discussed the steps taken by the government to substantially increase the number of seats in medical colleges for the students of erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan in compliance of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s directives.

The Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) told the meeting that the commission has no objection any quota seats of the erstwhile FATA, established by the federal government or implemented by the provincial government, as long as the admission was not “over and above” the allocated strength of each college and minimum merit benchmark was fulfilled.

The meeting was also informed that since public colleges are owned by the provincial government, hence any quota for public colleges is to be issued in consultation with the provincial government if deemed necessary by the federal government through its notified universities.

“It is for the provincial government to implement any quota notified by the federal government,” the PMC representative said. “The PMC is not the admission agency for admissions to public medical and dental colleges and has no role in the enforcement of quota.”

PMC also told the meeting that they have already added 793 seats in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), Balochistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to accommodate all quotas, including the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) scholarship project for deprived areas. It also added that the PMC has recently approved remaining 36 MBBS seats of the total 265 seats under this project and issued a notification on November 3 at K-P Health Department’s request.

It further informed that the matter of enhancement of seats in public colleges is the prerogative of the respective provincial government.

The committee discussed issuing a summon to HEC for further briefing on the matter, and sought a report from the provincial government regarding allocation of seats through the Pakistan Medical Commission.

The matter of regularisation of contractual employees of Federal Government Hospital, Chak Shahzad, Islamabad, was also taken up. The secretary of Ministry of Health informed the committee that the ministry has sent a letter tot he Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) for the postponement and rescheduling of the test due to the employee’s request given that they are preoccupied with coronavirus-related duties.

The secretary also informed the committee that demand of contractual employees for regularisation without examination could not be entertained under the law. However, on committee chief’s request, the secretary said that he would speak to the FPSC chairman on personal grounds for a way forward under special circumstances.

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The report by the convener of the sub-committee, Senator Sardar Muhammad Shafiq Tareen, regarding Legend College Multan for grant of licencing was laid before the committee. The committee adopted the report and directed that the recommendations be sent to the Pharmacy Council in the next two to three days.

Senator Tareen raised the issue of three medical colleges of Balochistan whose students have been asked to retake the admission test despite being in the third or fourth year of MBBS. The committee decided to take up the matter in the next meeting along with the issue of “aesthetic doctors” and “quackery”.

The meeting was also attended by Senator Professor Dr Mehr Taj Roghani, Fawzia Arshad, Dr Zarqa Suharwrdi Taimur, Mushtaq Ahmad Khan and Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar. Senior representatives of the ministry and its attached departments were also in attendance.