PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has approved a proposed increase in the health professional allowance for the teachers of Gajju Khan Medical College, Swabi, and Saidu Medical College, Swat, to bring that payment on par with what is drawn by the instructors of medical teaching institutions in the province.

A notification in this respect is expected to be issued after the chief minister’s formal approval.

Both the colleges operate under the health department unlike to the MTIs, which are run by the respective boards of governors under the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015.

Instructors of MTIs getting enhanced HPA since January

The doctors of the MTI-covered hospitals have been getting HPA since January this year.

The medics of both Swabi and Swat medical colleges have been protesting the ‘denial’ of enhanced HPA for the last many months prompting the health department to approve incentives for them.

Earlier, the finance department had agreed to increase HPA of the doctors of both colleges.

The doctors had got HPA at the rate of Rs10,000-Rs15,000 for the last 10 years. The current PTI government implemented the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, in some teaching hospitals, where the doctors were given HPA ranging from Rs40,000 to Rs90,000 a month as financial incentives to improve patient care.

Both the clinical and non-clinical medical teachers are getting allowance in the institutions covered by the MTIRA, 2015.

The health department has been paying Rs60,000 health allowance to professors, associate professors, assistant professors and senior registrars since Jan 1, 2017, while the demonstrators and lecturers of medical colleges get Rs42,000 a month.

The medical specialists working in unattractive disciplines in districts, including radiology, anesthesiology and pathology, are getting Rs80,000 HPA, while medical officers, dental surgeons, junior registrars and assistant anesthetists receive Rs42,000 a month with a view to attract specialists to the district level hospitals and address the specialists’ shortage due to which patients are transported to the city’s hospitals.

However, the notification issued by the health department in Jan this year said the enhanced HPA was meant only for the institutional employees of the hospitals and affiliated colleges covered under the MTIRA 2015.

It also said the employees would be eligible to claim the allowance as long as they remained employees of the MTIs concerned and wouldn’t be admissible to them during the earned, study, extraordinary and maternity leaves but they would get it only during casual leaves.

The notification said the HPA would not be treated as part of emoluments for the purpose of calculation of pension or recovery of house rent etc.

The HPA isn’t meant for the employees working as civil servants outside the MTI, it added.

Last year, the health department enhanced the HPA ranging from Rs60,000 to Rs140,000 a month, the highest ever in the country for doctors, on the basis of the remoteness of the areas where they worked.

The move was aimed at encouraging doctors for working in rural areas.

According to it, the medical officers and dental surgeons were entitled to Rs42,000 in urban and Rs52000 in rural areas of category A districts, Rs62,000 and Rs72,000 in category B and Rs82,000 and Rs92,000 in category C districts.

The government is giving Rs140,000 HPA to medical specialists in Buner, Battagram, Chitral, Hangu, Karak, Kohistan, Shangla, Tank and Torghar districts placed in the category C.

In the category B, doctors are getting Rs100,000 HPA in Nowshera, Swat, Kohat, Mardan, Bannu, Charsadda, Dera Ismail Khan, Lower Dir, Haripur, Mansehra, Malakand and Swabi districts.

In Peshawar and Abbottabad, which fall in the category A districts, they are eligible to draw Rs80,000 HPA.

For attractive specialties like medical, children and surgery etc, the doctors receive Rs60,000 in the category A districts, Rs80,000 in B and Rs100,000 in category C districts.

Health secretary Abid Majeed confirmed to Dawn that the enhanced HPA for the doctors of both the institutions had been approved and a notification in this regard would be issued soon.

“The government is taking measures to improve patient care in rural hospitals. We have approved Rs3 billion for the purchase of new equipment for hospitals,” he said.

The secretary said the government had increased the number of doctors from 3,000 to 70,000 in the last two years and was spending more than Rs1 billion on enhanced HPA annually.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2017