KARACHI: Trainee doctors yet to get promised raise
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Dec 18: The Sindh government has not yet fulfilled the promise of raising the monthly stipend of the house officers working in the government teaching hospitals across the province.
In the last week of October the house job officers had protested to press the government for the acceptance of their demands. The officers say they have become fed up with the alleged indifferent attitude of the bureaucracy in the Sindh health department.
“About six weeks back the then provincial health minister, Syed Sardar Ahmed, had told us that the government was willing to enhance the honorarium paid to the house officers in Sindh government hospitals and a necessary notification would be issued soon,” said a house officer.
The stipend for the house officers was last increased from Rs3,880 to Rs6,210 about five years back. After the completion of MBBS, graduates are required to serve in a hospital for 10-12 months as part of their training.
The new medicos at the CHK said the existing stipend or salary was already much less than what a lower division clerk or a primary school teacher was paid.
“It is the red tape that hinders the acceptance of our demand for an increase in stipends,” said a doctor, adding that the Punjab government had already started giving an enhanced payment to house officers.
On Nov 12, the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz also approved an increase in the stipends of house job officers and postgraduate trainees working in the federal government hospitals up to Rs12,000 and Rs15,000 per month, respectively, effective from January, 2007.
The officers said they, too, deserved the raise from January 2007 and the government should not delay the matter, otherwise they would again be compelled to go on strike.
“This is sheer injustice and apathy on the part of the Sindh government which is resorting to dilly-dallying tactics in our case. We have to discharge our duties in very difficult circumstances,” a doctor maintained.
When contacted, Dr Noushad Sheikh, vice-chancellor of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, said he personally wanted that the house officers’ stipend be increased at least up to Rs12,000 per month. There were reports that the government had agreed to increase the payment, but till recently the university had received the relevant fund from the Sindh government as per the old rates, he said, adding that so far the government had been releasing Rs6,250 per month per person both for house officers and postgraduate officers, and a government notification pertaining to the announced enhancement was also awaited.
Prof Javed Alam, chairman of the House Job Committee, CHK, said there was a commitment regarding the enhancement from the government side and it was maintained by the senior officials in the health department some time ago that the matter pertaining to the house officers had been sent to the finance department for necessary action. The salary of the house officers needed to be revised at least up to the level of what the doctors were getting in Punjab, but a delay in the issuance of notification was heightening concerns among the house officers, he added.
It was learnt that in line with the commitment of the last health minister a summary was moved for the chief minister’s approval regarding the financial implications in providing relief to the house officers, but the department has not pursued the matter after the exit of the political government.
