KARACHI, June 29: In order to overcome a shortage of staff in its various healthcare facilities across the province, the Sindh government has decided to employ doctors (grade 17 and 18) and paramedics on a three-year contract for which applications will be invited in the first week of July.

Sindh Health Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad on Friday said that posts, to be made district-oriented, would be filled through written tests and interviews.

He said that doctors appointed under the contract system might be regularised within a period of two years or so, provided they appeared in the Sindh Public Service Commission examinations as well.

The minister made these remarks while visiting the Sindh Government Children Hospital in New Karachi.

Talking to the staff there, he said that the post of doctors and nurses would be advertised in the national dailies soon and candidates would be required to submit applications latest by July 15, while tests would be held on July 30 at Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur simultaneously.

Successful candidates would be required to fill a bond committing them to serving at any healthcare facility in the district of their choice for at least three years, he said.

The health minister said that the government wanted to raise the status of the Children Hospital in New Karachi to that of a provincial institute of child health on the pattern of the National Institute of Child Health, Karachi.

He said that the government had allocated Rs700 million in the latest budget for the improvement of some hospitals and provision of new sanctioned expenditures to them. The Children Hospital New Karachi would also be reactivated as an autonomous institution through the joint efforts of the private sector, provincial and the city governments.

At the Sindh Government Hospital, New Karachi, the minister asked the medical superintendent to ensure cleanliness and improve hygienic condition in the medical facility.

During his visit to an urban healthcare centre in New Karachi the same day, the minister announced that gynaecologists attending patients at night on emergency calls at the centre would be given adequate allowances for transport in the future.

According to a health department official, about 500 doctors and 350 paramedical staff including nurses are likely to be employed on a contract basis during the next financial year.