Karachi: The Sindh government has assigned Shehryar Gul Memon, a Pakistan Administrative Service officer who is coordinating the province’s polio eradication and immunisation operations, additional charge of Director General Health Services Sindh, a decision that has triggered debate over whether the province’s top technical health office should be led by a career public-health professional.
A notification issued by the Services, General Administration and Coordination Department on September 21 said Shehryar Gul Memon, a BS-19 PAS officer and Coordinator of the Emergency Operations Centre Sindh for Polio Eradication and Immunization, would hold the additional charge of DG Health Services “in addition to his own duties, till further orders”.
The notification also relieved him of the additional charge of Special Secretary, Health Department, with immediate effect.
Memon is understood to be medically qualified, with an MBBS degree, and has studied at the Liaquat University of Medical Sciences (LUMS). However, health department officials said he had not practised clinical medicine or served as a regular officer in the provincial health department before assuming his present administrative and polio-related responsibilities.
Officials familiar with the decision defended the appointment, saying Memon had effectively managed Sindh’s polio programme, an area that requires coordination between district administrations, health workers, law-enforcement agencies, development partners and communities.
They maintained that the DG Health office required strong administrative leadership as well as technical input from directors and programme managers, and said his performance in polio operations had demonstrated his ability to oversee a complex health-sector assignment.
“The polio programme is among the most demanding public-health operations in Sindh. It involves vaccination planning, surveillance, data review, workforce deployment and constant coordination with districts,” a health department official said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly.
However, several public-health professionals and serving health officials expressed reservations, arguing that the director general’s office is not simply an administrative post and must provide technical leadership on disease surveillance, primary healthcare, hospitals, immunisation, epidemics, human resources and provincial health policy.
They said Sindh needed a full-time DG Health with deep experience in the department and public-health systems, particularly when the province faces persistent challenges including polio, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, dengue, malaria, maternal and child-health gaps and overstretched public hospitals.
“The DG Health has to take quick, technically informed decisions during outbreaks and coordinate with clinicians, epidemiologists, laboratories and district health teams. Administrative competence is important, but it cannot substitute for institutional and technical experience,” a senior public-health professional said.
Critics also questioned whether assigning the office as an additional charge to an official already responsible for polio and immunisation could dilute attention from either responsibility. The provincial Emergency Operations Centre plays a central role in maintaining vaccination coverage and responding to poliovirus risks, while the DG Health office has a much broader mandate across the health system.
The appointment does not suggest any legal or administrative irregularity, as governments routinely assign additional charges under service rules. The debate instead centres on the policy choice of whether Sindh should fill a key technical health position through a temporary additional-charge arrangement or appoint a permanent, suitably experienced public-health leader.
Health officials said the effectiveness of the arrangement would ultimately depend on whether Memon is provided a strong technical team, clear authority and sufficient time to focus on both assignments.
For now, the notification leaves Sindh’s health services under an officer whose recent record in polio management has won support within the administration, but whose appointment has also revived a wider question: should the province’s top public-health office be treated primarily as an administrative assignment or a specialised technical post?
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