October 18, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 5, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 17: Postgraduate trainee doctors of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) are skeptical about Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s assurance of increase in their stipends, but would wait for one week before going ahead with their strike plans.

“The prime minister during his visit to Pims on the eve of Eidul Fitr assured us that the summary for increase in stipends would be approved immediately,” a postgraduate trainee said on Wednesday, adding that this was the latest attempt by the administration to appease the agitating trainee postgraduate doctors, who have been long demanding a ‘respectable honorarium’.

“We want to give a reasonable time to the government to implement prime minister’s promise,” one of the doctors, who represented his colleagues at the meeting with Mr Aziz, said while disclosing the revised strategy to press for their demands.

The doctors had resorted to strike sometime back, which earned them an assurance from the health ministry for an increase in stipends by Eidul Fitr, but that could not materialise.

The trainee doctors then threatened to go on strike after Eid. The hospital management used prime minister’s latest visit to the hospital in connection with Eid to reassure the trainee doctors that their demands would be met. This at least helped the management buy some more time and prevent the trainee doctors considered as the back-bone of medical care at tertiary hospitals from going on strike.

“We want to be paid at par with what postgraduate trainees are being paid in Punjab,” a trainee doctor said while explaining their demands.

The trainee doctors of FCPS and MS/MD are seeking an increase from the existing Rs10,000 to more than Rs15,000 per month. They also demand an equal stipend for all PGs of MCPS, DCPS, DCH, DCP, DOphth, DGO, MPhil and others, who are not being currently paid.

Meanwhile the house officers are asking for an increase in their stipend from the existing Rs5,000 to Rs12,000. Furthermore, the doctors want arrears to be paid with effect from January 2007 when the revised stipend rate was implemented in Punjab.

Currently the postgraduate trainees are paid Rs10,000 per month for at least two 36-hour calls per week. The house officers get a paltry sum of Rs6,000 a month.

Ruing the poor stipend rates for the trainee doctors, the doctors said fresh graduates in other fields get much better returns.