Pakistani healthcare sector, institutions need leaders, not managers: Dr. Abdul Bari Khan

• “The poor state of healthcare in Pakistan is due to lack of leadership,” says Indus Health Network CEO.
• “In this economic crunch, especially in the healthcare and most importantly in the hospitals, leadership matters even more,” says Andleeb Abbass.

KARACHI: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Indus Health Network (IHN) Dr. Abdul Bari Khan has called for employing ‘leaders instead of managers’ to run the healthcare facilities and lead the health sector in Pakistan, saying lack of leadership has ruined the entire healthcare sector in the country.

“The poor state of healthcare in Pakistan is due to lack of leadership. Instead of managers, we need leaders to run the healthcare facilities and the entire healthcare sector in the country”, he said while speaking at an MoU signing ceremony between Franklin Covey, an international consulting and training firm and the Institute of Leadership Excellence (ILE), Pakistan for the training of Pakistani physicians and healthcare professionals here at Karachi School of Business and Leadership (KBL), Karachi on Saturday.

Senior leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Andleeb Abbass and a certified Franklin Covey Master Trainer in Pakistan, Steven Fitzgerad General Manager of the Franklin Covey, USA, international patient safety expert Prof. Dr. Paul Barach, ILE’s executive director Dr. Zakiuddin Ahmed, Frakling Covey Pakistan’s representative Maryam Wazirzada, Haroon Qasim, Syed Jamshaid Ahmed and others also spoke while a large number of senior physicians, surgeons and academicians attended the ceremony.

Franklin Covey is a US-based international consulting and training firm that was established by the author of world’s all-time bestseller “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen Covey. The company provides training and consultation services to people from different sectors, industries and areas in across the world.

Speaking as the keynote speaker at the MoU signing ceremony, Dr. Abdu Bari Khan felicitated the ILE leadership for bringing Franklin Covey in Pakistan and said by training and producing leaders in the healthcare sector, many of the issues in the area could be resolved in the country where both the public and private sectors have miserably failed in providing services to the people.

Citing the establishment of Indus Health Network, he said it was like a dream to provide quality health services to the poor people free of charge but within a short span of a few years, it has evolved into a network of 12 hospitals across Pakistan with annual budget of 130 million USD where hundreds of thousands of patients are treated annually without asking for money in a paperless environment.

PTI MNA and Core Committee member Andleeb Abbass said although healthcare institutions are facing financial crunch at the moment but still there are some, which are performing extraordinarily and providing best healthcare services to people due to presence of highly skilled, trained and gifted leaders proving as a blessing for the poor people of Pakistan.

“In this economic crunch, especially in the healthcare and most importantly in the hospitals, leadership matters even more. There are some leaders who are able to create smiles on the faces of poor patients and their attendants despite facing the financial constraints. We require such leaders at all of our healthcare facilities to steer these institutions out of crisis”, she said and congratulated the ILE for signing the MoU with Franklin Covey to train Pakistani healthcare professionals to learn skill for effective performance of their institutions and departments.

Eminent patient safety expert Prof. Dr. Paul Barach spoke about adverse events at the healthcare facilities, discontent doctors who are committing suicides even in the countries like United States, and added that world is facing an epidemic of ‘unhappy doctors and nurses’ who need help, support and training to cope with the day to day stress and problems they are facing.

Steven Fitzgerald, the General Manager of the international consulting firm Franklin Covey in his presentation spoke about the services offered by the Franklin Covey in the area of leadership training and said in the area of healthcare, they have worked with many healthcare facilities in the United States and other countries of the world where patients satisfaction improved to a large extent following training of their leaders by the Franklin Covey experts.

He hoped that Memorandum of Understanding signed between Franklin Covey and Institute of Leadership Excellence (ILE) would be highly beneficial for not only the healthcare providers but would also improve the service delivery and patients’ satisfaction at the healthcare facilities in Pakistan.