Lost opportunity: KU wastes chance to establish teaching hospital

The Lincoln Medical Foundation had proposed to establish a 500-bed facility.

KARACHI: The Karachi University (KU) administration has apparently squandered the opportunity to establish a world-class teaching hospital and trauma centre of its own.

The US-based Lincoln Medical Foundation's long-standing proposal to establish a 500-bed teaching hospital, costing $800 million, at the main university campus was finally quashed in a meeting of the KU syndicate, the varsity's highest decision-making body, held on Friday.

A syndicate member told The Express Tribune that the 'blunder' was made in the wake of a continuing crisis that has almost eroded the varsity's faculty of medicine.

The crisis emerged in October last year, when the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) compelled the university to secede from its affiliated medical and dental colleges since it did not have a constituent medical or dental college. Succumbing to the PMDC's pressure, vice-chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Qaiser had announced admissions to the varsity's 'constituent medical college' that has yet to see the light of the day.

The Lincoln Medical Foundation was established in 1992 by a Pakistani couple, Dr and Mrs Firasat Ghori, who have been settled in the United States since 1970. "It evolved under the guidance of late US Senator Paul Simon, with the aim of providing healthcare support across the globe," explained Ghori, who is also associated with Food and Drugs Administration agency in the US government.

The idea of establishing a fully equipped hospital, he added, was initiated by Senator Simon after his visit to Pakistan. "He advised the foundation to establish a state-of-the-art facility for the people of Pakistan," he said. "Although this idea could not materialise during his lifetime, it remained with the foundation as one of its main missions."

In September 2013, Ghori approached Qaiser with the proposal, in to response to which the latter consented to donate 70 acres on campus to establish the facility, official documents available with The Express Tribune revealed.

The VC's consent appeared to delight the late Illinois senator's daughter, Sheila Simon, who held the Illinois Lieutenant Governor's office from 2011 until January this year. She wrote to Dr Qaiser on March 27, 2014, congratulating and thanking him for his donation of the land.

"My father was a friend of Dr Ghori, and he encouraged him to work on this project," she stated in her letter, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune. "He would have been thrilled to see what is being accomplished."

However, KU's internal politics as well as teachers' suspicions that the foundation only sought to grab university land brought the situation to a standstill, explained a senior faculty member.  Exasperated by the inordinate delays, Ghori made a final attempt to convince the university to avail this opportunity for the sake of the Pakistani people, in dire need of good quality healthcare.

In a letter to the VC on March 4, 2015, Ghori reminded Qaiser of the university's agreement to provide land to the foundation. "If we do not receive the memorandum of understanding from KU within two weeks, we will be left with no choice but to scrap the entire project." Subsequently, the VC decided to place the matter before the university's syndicate members, the majority of whom were not ready to offer the foundation any control over their investment, explained the syndicate member.

"This is unacceptable to the foundation since its proposal clearly stated that it would manage and run the project," he added. "This includes appointments of all professionals and consultants for the project as well as faculty members from American universities."

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2015.