ISLAMABAD: Doctors at the Cardiac Care Centre of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), who have not been paid their salaries for 23 months, have written to the Pims vice chancellor, saying they may stop working on June 1.

Pims VC Dr Javed Akram said the doctors should continue working because he was trying his best to address their problem by regularising their services.

The doctors’ letter, available with Dawn, says the project of cardiac surgery was started in 2005 the employees of which were appointed through proper channel after completing all legal and other formalities.

“From last 11 years we are performing our duties with devotion and responsibility without break till date. We perform all sorts of open and close heart surgeries approximately 50 procedures per month.

“Similarly approximately 250 percutaneous (angioplasties) are conducted each month. Majority of these patients are poor, Baitul Mal funded and entitled patients,” the letter reads.

The letter goes on to say that staff contracts expired on June 30, 2015 and salaries were stopped July 1, 2015.

“Since then we are performing our duties without salaries. This has resulted a lot of stress and agony for our families. We humbly request to please extend our contracts and release pending salaries of 23 months. Failing which the unpaid employees may not be able to perform duties after June 1, 2017,” the letter says.

The PC-1 of the Cardiac Centre was approved in 2004 but construction work was delayed so that it was only inaugurated on April 9, 2015. The payment of salaries to staff was stopped after the completion of the project but Pims requested them to keep on working as they will soon be declared employees of the Cardiac Centre soon. Employees have been working without salaries since, hoping the Capital Administration and Development Division will address their issue after getting permission from the Prime Minister Office.

A doctor at the centre said the staff was trying to get their services regularised since the PPP government when a large number of contractual employees were regularised.

“In 2013, we filed a writ petition in the Islamabad High Court and after hearing the case, Justice Athar Minallah in 2014 referred our issue to the Regularisation Committee headed by a bureaucrat, Haseeb Athar. The committee regularised employees in BPS 1 through to 15 and said it did not have the mandate to regularise gazetted officers,” he said.

“We were 37 employees in the cardiac centre of which seven have left due to the delay in the payment of salaries. Now nine doctors are working without salary for 23 months now and it is difficult to leave the job as well as our salaries of almost two years is at stake,” he said.

Pims VC Dr Javed Akram told Dawn the doctors should not stop working.

“There were employees of the project and as the project was delayed, they became overage for the job. I have been trying my best to get permission from the prime minister office to regularise their services, which is what they deserve,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2017