PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has transferred 32 employees, mostly paramedics, from the Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad for violating the Essential Service Maintenance Act, 1958, it recently enforced in the province’s hospitals.

Meanwhile, the Health Employees Coordination Council, which called off the strike at the teaching hospitals, appreciated the provincial government for accepting their demands, including grant of professional allowance, fixing duty timing from 8am to 4pm with two weekly offs and working out the service structure of paramedics and restoring the Postgraduate Medical Institute. In a press release, the council hoped that the government would also cancel transfers of their colleagues.

The government has so far transferred 59 employees of the teaching hospitals, including 19 from the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, eight from Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar, and 32 from the Ayub Teaching Hospital for striking against enforcement of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA), 2015.

Though, the chief minister accepted the demands of the striking health employees during a meeting on Thursday, he didn’t assure he would order cancellation of the transfers.

Meanwhile, Director General Health Services, Dr Pervez Kamal, told Dawn the employees were being transferred upon the recommendation of the hospitals where the MTIRA had been enforced and their transfers wouldn’t be cancelled. However, he said they would be placed near Peshawar because they were senior employees of the department.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2016

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