PESHAWAR: The government has not been able to give health professional allowance to doctors, nurses and paramedics owing to non-availability of funds, according to officials.

They said that staffers at three medical teaching institutions including Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex were not getting HPA regularly. The allowance was announced last year by government as incentive to improve patients’ care.

In Hayatabad Medical Complex, HPA has not been paid to the employees since January. The Hayatabad Medical Complex will start giving HPA to the entitled staffers from its own fund because it still awaits Rs150 million from the government for the current year.

“The hospital requires Rs70 million annually to pay to the non-HPA employees,” said officials.

Rs3 billion needed to award allowance to all employees

They said that Lady Reading Hospital received Rs187 million against its demand of Rs690 million for all staff. Khyber Teaching Hospital got Rs184 million and required Rs40 million to make up for all its employees, they added.

The government has to pay Rs3 billion to the non-clinical, technical staff and Class-IV employees as HPA to end series of strikes at the public sector hospitals, according to sources.

More than 18,000 employees of the health department have been protesting for not being paid HPA, announced by government last year for clinical staff. The provincial government requires Rs3 billion to pay HPA to all the employees. The health department is finding it hard to get the amount because doling out money on HPA hasn’t paid off.

“So where will this end? Salary budget is becoming unmanageable for health department. One can’t have benefit upon benefit without any concern for patients’ care,” a health economist told Dawn.

The government has enhanced HPA for doctors from Rs10,000 to Rs42000 and 140,000 per month last year and pays additional Rs252 million to 6000 medical officers in the province.

The department spends Rs3 billion on HPA, already approved for the employees.

Ultimately, the government will give the amount. The employees have found easy way to block road and get their demands accepted without taking into account the suggestion of those responsible for healthcare at the hospitals.

“The matter is related to government’s policy,” said an official. Administrations at the hospitals are helpless to cope with the strikes by non-paid employees.

Sources said that stipend for trainee medical officers was increased from Rs49,000 to more than Rs100, 000 a month last year.

Non-clinical employees, including clerical, ministerial, information technology, Class-IV workers and managerial staff have been demanding HPA. They have gone on strike for the last three days at the hospitals.

Sources said that it was a policy matter but government would accept the demand of protesters because the employees used the same tactics to apply pressure on the government.

Contrary to the suggestion by financial managers at the hospitals that HPA should be paid to doctors, nurses and paramedics, the government succumbed to strike tactics and announced monetary benefits for employees without taking into account the financial woes of hospitals.

“To ensure smooth sailing of the system, these managers have proposed MTIs allowance for workers, who are entitled to HPA,” said officials. They said that such workers didn’t come into direct contact with patients due to which they didn’t face risk of getting exposure to diseases and therefore only institutional clinical employees were able to get HPA.

“Non-clinical lower staffs have already taken two steps upgradation and persons last year,” said officials.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2017