PESHAWAR, Oct 17: The reinstatement of doctors, who resigned in protest against the introduction of the institution- based practice, would not affect those doctors who were promoted after their resignations, officials said.

He said the abolition of the institution-based practice by the provincial assembly had vindicated the stand taken by protesting doctors, adding that doctors who had left their jobs should be reinstated on their previous jobs.

After the introduction of the practice, he said, some senior doctors had left the country to avoid controversy while some of them had continued government service but had refrained from the institution-based practice.

Some of those, who did not resign in the wake of the introduction of the practice, had kept telling authorities about its negative effects.

Terming the discontinuation of the practice a difficult decision, he said a major factor in this regard had been the governor as he had one of the most vocal advocates of the idea.

He reminded that at one point, even the president had admonished the provincial government for planning to scrap the practice.

The government, he said, had faced multiple difficulties while opposing the practice, including the recognition of the Gomal and Saidu Medical Colleges, besides threats of delisting of the Khyber Medical College by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.

After the abolition of the practice, he said, the government faced the dual task of further strengthening under-graduate and post-graduate medical institutes by re-hiring senior teachers while making doctors, who had been promoted in lieu of vacant posts, feel secure.

Therefore, a number of high-level meetings were held in which members of every teaching and district hospitals were represented.

Other administrative departments like finance, S&GAD and law were represented by their respective heads, besides the active involvement of the chief secretary to solve the issue. Everyone agreed that doctors, who had been promoted after resigning of senior doctors, should not be demoted.

Officials said that they (doctors who had left their jobs in protest) could be accommodated easily as a large number of senior posts had fallen vacant in the health department over the years.

Now, that the cabinet has also approved the abolition of the institute-based practice, doctors who had resigned in protest, would be reinstated without demoting or reverting any of the subsequently promoted doctors.