PESHAWAR: Request to restore trainee doctors’ stipend rejected
By Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR, Dec 7: The NWFP government has rejected the health department’s request to restore the monthly stipend to a category of trainee medical officers. According to sources, the decision was conveyed to the health secretariat in response to a summary sent to chief secretary Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi about two weeks ago. The stipend for the trainee doctors was abolished through a notification issued by the chief secretary on Sept 21.
The dean of the Postgraduate Medical Institute had urged the government to restore the stipend and save his institution from being disaccredited by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan. “The decision to abolish stipend for private trainee doctors will lead to de-recognition (of the PGMI) by the CPSP as its rules do not provide for FCPS-II training for those not being paid mandatory stipend equivalent to the minimum salary of a scale-17 medical officer,” PGMI dean Prof Arshad Javaid said in a letter sent to the health secretary a month ago.
He said the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in Karachi had been disaccredited by the CPSP for not paying stipend to trainee doctors and the PGMI might meet the same fate if the decision to abolish the stipend was not reviewed. “The decision is discriminatory as other provinces not only pay stipend to all private trainee doctors but have also recently increased the amount to Rs16,000,” he claimed.
The dean requested the government to review the decision to secure the future of specialised medical education.
Private trainee doctors, also referred to as non-government doctors, were initially inducted as honorary trainees without any remuneration. However, in 1999 the CPSP framed new rules under which the stipend for private trainee doctors was made mandatory. As many as 35 additional seats were created for private trainee doctors at that time. The number was increased to 120 in 2000 and to 250 in 2003.
The chief secretary had asked the health department to send him a summary in this regard, said some sources. After a meeting of the provincial health minister, health secretary and officials of the PGMI, a summary was sent to the chief secretary, asking him to restore the stipend.
“The chief secretary had promised that the stipend for private trainee doctors would be restored, but some conspiracies are being hatched against the trainees at the highest level,” a source in the health secretariat said. The chief secretary had returned the summary to the health department and said that priority be given to government trainee doctors.
The sources say that in a revised summary to be sent to the chief secretary in a couple of days it has been explained that both private and government trainee doctors were being enrolled in postgraduate courses according to their own quota of seats. It has also been explained in the summary that payment of stipend to private trainees will not affect government trainee doctors.
