PESHAWAR: The health department has proposed a five-tier service structure for nurses across the province to improve the prospects of their promotion.

A summary in this respect has been put up to the caretaker chief minister for approval, officials told Dawn.

The officials said among health department employees, only nurses didn’t have a revised service structure.

Summary on five-tier service structure sent to CM for approval

They said the doctors, specialists and paramedics had got service structure.

The officials said medical officers and dental surgeons were given four-tier service structure, specialists three-tier and paramedics seven-tier and that the proposed five-tier formula would also include nurses, who were only cadre left out until now.

The summary, a copy of which is available with Dawn, proposes to revise the existing 6003 posts in five tiers, while the existing structure only allows four tiers.

In the existing structure, there are 5,667 posts of BPS-16, 304 posts of BPS-17, 31 posts of BPS-18 and one post of BPS-19.

However, the five-tier system proposes to slash the number of BPS-16 posts to 3,002 from 5,667 and increase the BPS-17 seats to 1,800, BPS-18 to 900 and BPS-19 to 289, and to create 12 posts in BPS-20.

In the existing system, no BPS-20 posts are available for the nursing cadre.

The summary notes that the health department is cognisant of the fact that the present service structure of nurses is anomalous as availability of posts in higher grades is limited and nursing staff has bleak chances of promotion in higher grades due to the limited ratio distribution of posts in the existing higher hierarchy.

It said during the last five years, more than 150 charge nurses of BPS-16 had retired without getting a single promotion due to the unavailability of vacant positions in higher grades.

The summary said the seniority list of charge nurses BPS-16 showed most of them continued to work in the same pay scale despite more than 30 years of service.

It said the Provincial Nursing Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had submitted a charter of demands to the health department mostly based on a service structure more conducive to career progress.

During the hearing of cases by the Supreme Court at the Peshawar Registry, the Provincial Nursing Association has submitted an application to the chief justice of Pakistan demanding ratio enhancement andrestructuring of nurses in different scales to provide promotion prospects to the incumbents as well as removing the one step ‘same grade’ promotion form head nurse (BS-17) to nursing instructor/nursing superintendent (BPS-17).

It says human resources in the health in the most critical factor in provision of quality preventive, promotive and curative services.

It said among others, nurses were playing a vital role in the health care service delivery system and were an important part of the pyramid of health care service providers.

“They are providing allied health services throughout health care facilities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata including autonomous institutions. Development of quality professionals in the field of nursing requires restructuring in hierarchy to cater to the emerging challenges of this profession,” it added.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2018