PESHAWAR, June 19: Hundreds of doctors working on contract basis in health units in the province may lose their jobs after refusal of the health department to regularise their services, officials said.

“The government has rejected our demand of regularising our jobs without qualifying the Public Service Commission tests and interview,” said representatives of the contract doctors.

“We have 650 doctors who have been working on contract basis since 1995. Their demand to regularise their services without subjecting them to public service commission tests and interviews is unjustified,” said an official. According to him, of the total 880 vacant regular posts in the province, 650 were working on contract basis, whereas the rest of 230 were lying vacant.

All these posts are being filled through public service commission (PSC). As we get doctors who had cleared PSC’s examination, the contractual doctors would go home, he said. The appointment orders of the contract doctors clearly state that they would lose their jobs in case of the availability of the PSC’s nominee.

He said that according to the rules, doctors were required to qualify the PSC for permanent posting .

He said that the government had began the process of filling these posts through public service commission and those not willing to appear in the tests and interviews would lose their jobs.

On the other hand, contract doctors argue that they had qualified the commission examination. They said that since they were working on contract for the last 11 years. Most of them, they said, had become overage and could not apply for other jobs. However, government officials say that the contract doctors were eligible to apply for any government job till they attain the age of 35 years. Furthermore, the government had given them a further 10 years as age relaxation, meaning that they can apply for a government’s job even at the age of 45 years.

An official said the provincial health department had first started appointing doctors on contract basis in 1995 till a resolution passed by the NWFP Assembly abolishing the contract system in July 2004. Now, the government has started appointing doctors on regular basis after qualifying PSC.