KARACHI, March 8: Well-known professionals representing the doctors threatened on Monday to launch a protest campaign against "dubious" appointments in the health department.

Speaking at a press briefing, PMA president and general-secretary said that if the authorities did not take corrective steps within a week, the doctors would launch a province-wide campaign.

"We have several options before us," said Dr Qaiser Sajjad, the PMA-Karachi's Secretary-General. "We can take to the streets. We can go to the court. We can also call a hunger strike to create awareness of the malpractice in the health department."

Dr Haseeb Alam, president of the PMA-Karachi, said a majority of the Basic Health Units and Rural Health Centres were not operating smoothly because untrained people with dubious character had been appointed there.

"Taluka and district hospitals are facing severe problems of management because of continuous tussle between the city governments and the provincial and federal governments."

This only compounded the problems the health units face. Referring to the issue of corruption in appointments, Dr Sajjad said: "In case of transfer and posting there is no consideration of honesty, competence and seniority. In fact, the competent and honest doctors are either harassed or waiting for posting or have applied for long leave to get rid of mental torture."

Giving a couple of examples, he added: "The government is appointing very junior doctors against senior posts just because of connections or payment to the concerned authorities."

He introduced Dr Ghulam Haider Arain who, he said, should be made the director-general (health) because of his seniority but who was being surpassed in favour of someone who ranked 14th on the seniority list.

The President and general-secretary of the PMA-Karachi said the present EDO (health) in Karachi was ranked 384th among the grade-19 officers. "The man who has been made the EDO has no experience of running a hospital or any other health car unit for that matter," said Dr Sajjad. "He only has some experience of working as a doctor in a prison."

This doctor from grade-19 had been posted to a position meant for the grade-20 officers simply because of his contacts, he claimed. "Anyone who gets a 'lucrative' posting after spending several lakhs will only extract 'millions' from the system if and when he gets a chance," said Dr Alam.

The office-bearers of PMA-Karachi explained that at their last executive committee meeting they had passed a resolution, condemning the "anarchy in the health department arising out of total disregard for the rules and regulations in appointments".

They concluded the press conference by claiming that the health delivery system in the province had unnecessarily been compromised, causing resentment and dejection among the honest and dedicated doctors.