The government of Sindh has failed to finalise the name for coveted post of the Vice Chancellor of Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) despite the lapse over seven months, affecting the administrative and research activities in Sindh’s largest medical university.
An official of Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) told PPI that over seven months have passed but the government of Sindh had yet to finalise the name of some official for this slot. He said delay in appointment of the VC had badly affected the administrative affairs of varsity while research activities were also going slow due to unavailability of a permanent VC.
He said there were rumors that the Sindh chief minister and governor wanted to appoint their favourite candidate on this post; therefore, no appointment had been made despite the passage of seven months. The post of Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) vice chancellor has been lying vacant since September 2015, he added.
The provincial government has formed a vice chancellor search committee which has short listed the names of three professors – Prof Saeed Qureshi, Prof Amjad Siraj and Prof Umer Farooq – after interviews. However, the governor issued notification for making Prof Noushad Shaikh as the VC of DUHS who was suspended by the Sindh High Court (SHC) as the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) challenged his appointment.
He said a few weeks ago, the chief minister sent a summery to the governor for appointment of Prof Noushad Shaikh as DUHS’s VC but the governor rejected the summery due to legal issues. The chief minister again sent a summary for appointing Prof Saeed Qureshi as VC of the DUHS few days ago which is yet to be approved by the governor.
Pakistan Medical Association (Centre) Secretary General Dr Mirza Ali Azhar while talking to PPI said that delay in appointment of DUHS VC had been causing immense loss to the medical education in Sindh province. He said the administrative affairs of the medical university were being run through an acting vice chancellor for last seven months.
He said a powerful lobby wanted to keep their hold on this university but these tactics had brought a bad name to medical education in Sindh.
