March 06, 2008	Thursday	Safar 27 ,1429

KARACHI, March 5: Although the doctors and nurses who had qualified as medical officers, specialists and nurses in the Sindh health department are accusing the bureaucracy of delaying the issuance of their job letters, the caretaker Sindh chief minister said on Wednesday that the coming government would look into their cases.

Talking to newsmen after an anti-polio campaign inauguration ceremony at a hotel, Chief Minister Abdul Qadir Halepota said that job letters to the applicants would now be issued by the elected government.

On the initiative of the caretaker provincial health minister, retired Justice Halepota had approved recruitment of about 2,100 medical officers, specialists and nurses in the health department about 20 days back, relaxing the recruitment criteria laid down by the government of Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim.

Not satisfied with the pace of follow-ups on decisions of the caretaker chief minister by the bureaucracy, several doctors and nurses have been staging demonstrations, saying that they deserved the jobs but the health secretary and others were delaying the matter.

The chief minister told the newsmen the government had decided to appoint doctors and nurses on a contract basis for some time and that was why he had ordered the filling of the posts by giving a one-year contract to those who had cleared the relevant tests.

He said he still upheld the cases short-listed after the test and hoped that the new government would proceed further if sufficient time was not left for his government to get the appointments finalised.

The candidates had passed a written test for jobs in the categories of general physician/medical officer (grade 17), specialists (grade 18) and the nursing cadre (grade 16). The test was conducted on Nov 4, 2007.

Earlier, talking to Dawn during the day, a leader of the doctors, Dr Tahir Qureshi, said all the successful applicants coming from various districts of Sindh were highly perturbed over the delay.

“We have been holding meetings with the health minister, while the senior health officials remained indifferent to our cases and told us that things would be sorted out on a priority basis,” he said, adding that the health secretary or other officials concerned were not taking interest in the issue.

A source said the Sindh health minister in a letter to the health secretary had said that at a meeting held at the office of the chief secretary on March 3 and attended by the minister and other high officials and representatives of the aggrieved doctors, it was decided that the results should be intimated to successful candidates (obtaining 40 marks or more), which would be followed by formal offer letters.

A draft specimen of the letter to be issued to successful candidates had also been finalised, the source added.