Govt moves to tighten oversight of KP medical teaching institutions

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has moved to step up oversight of medical teaching institutions (MTIs), with Chief Minister Sohail Afridi directing the health department to inspect the facilities and ensure that patients receive better care.

As part of that effort, Health Secretary Shahidullah Khan visited MTI Lady Reading Hospital on Thursday. He reviewed the outpatient department and voiced concern over conditions there, including poor cleanliness, weak staff attendance and the absence of patient registration desks.

Sources said the visit differed from previous inspections because the secretary kept a low profile and was not accompanied by the hospital’s top management. They said he met patients, went to the registration counter and personally noted deficiencies during the visit.

An official said the inspection had not been pre-announced and was carried out under the chief minister’s instructions.

"It was a surprise visit due to which the LRH administration didn’t accompany the secretary. The visit was conducted on the directives of the chief minister,"

Medical teaching institutions have recently faced criticism over what sources described as a decline in patient care standards and irregularities in appointments to senior executive posts by their boards of governors.

Under the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, 11 teaching hospitals and their affiliated colleges were placed outside the direct administrative control of the health department and are now managed by boards of governors drawn from the private sector. Sources said this had left the government under pressure, as the boards were making decisions while the health secretary, who heads a system overseeing the wider public health structure, had no effective authority over them.

According to the sources, the provincial health system supervised through the secretariat and the directorate general health services covers around 2,600 hospitals and about 90,000 employees. They added that MTIs continue to receive government funding and were allocated Rs80 billion this year, up from Rs65bn in 2025-26, even though the government does not directly control them.

Sources said the health secretary is expected to inspect more MTIs and submit a report to the government. They added that the chief minister had also directed him to convene a meeting of MTI executives and instruct them to improve their institutions’ functioning.

The sources further said that when the chief minister visited Lady Reading Hospital in December, he ordered the removal of the hospital director over poor patient care, but the official was not removed and instead completed his five-year tenure. They added that the same official was later appointed to MTI-Mardan Medical Complex by its board of governors, despite the chief minister’s earlier directive.

According to the sources, MTIs were previously among the province’s main tertiary care hospitals under the health department, where complaints could be addressed through the secretary’s office. They said the present arrangement, in which boards of governors run the institutions independently, had created difficulties for the government amid public criticism over their functioning.