Senate Standing Committee on National Regulation and Services on Wednesday directed National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), Karachi, to convene the meeting of its Board of Governor (BoG) within 14 days with an objective to discuss all the challenges being faced by the institute after the passage of 18th constitutional amendment.
The committee directed the Executive Director(ED) NICVD, Professor Khan Shah Zaman to submit the report of the meeting to the committee, besides appointing two members of committee Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan and Senator Malik Muhammad Rafique Rajwana to participate in the meeting.
The committee, which met with Senator Zafar Ali Shah in the chair, discussed the functions responsibilities and performance of the NICVD. In addition, the committee also discussed hurdles being faced by the NICVD in running the department smoothly. Shah Zaman told the committee that before the passage of 18th constitutional amendment, the NICVD was under the federal government, but after the devolution of federal health ministry to the provincial governments, the fate of the institute has yet to be decided whether it would be provincial or federal subject.
He said that meeting of the BoG was not convened since the devolution of the federal health ministry to provinces, which is seriously effecting the functioning of the institute as various posts of professors, associate professors and other staff members are vacant, as these cannot be filled witthout the approval of the BoG "Being an ED of the institute I have written at least nine letters to different people, including Prime Minster, President and others government top officials, but no feedback to this effect has been received hitherto," he maintained.