KARACHI, Jan 13: Sindh Health Minister, Major General (R) Ahsan Ahmad, has said that the service structure of specialists doctors in the province will be improved and streamlined in accordance with the requirements and aspirations of the deserving and meritorious candidates.

“The present structure has clearly failed to motivate health specialists as it offers little, creating despondency and frustration among them. In the new setup which is aimed at upgrading their status they will be extended better and encouraging prospects,” he said while talking to PPI at his office about the purpose of his two-day visit to the hospitals and health centres in the interior Sindh.

The minister said that the provincial health department would soon send its recommendations to the federal government for the provision of substantial funds for making operational medical equipments and apparatus worth millions of rupees and lying idle in many public hospitals in Sindh.

He disclosed that the department had taken serious cognizance of habitual absentee employees, specially doctors and paramedics who had least respect for the rights of their patients.

“So far, after thorough departmental procedures, some 350 doctors have been dismissed from their jobs. They were perennial absentees undermining the image of the department,” he said and added that similar prosecution would be accorded to all those in future who failed to fulfil their assignments.

According to him majority of doctors and specialists who had applied for NOCs for acquiring jobs in Saudi Arabia had been issued the same.

However, he said, 11 of them were denied permission as 10 of them were under a contractual obligation with the department to complete their specific time period while one was facing disciplinary action and enquiry owing to his involvement in malpractice.

He said those who were granted NOCs by the government would be subjected to punitive measures if they failed to join their posts within due period of time and no leniency would be extended to them.

He said the government was conscious that a large number of substandard and unlawful medical laboratories had been set up in the province. He said the health department would utilize all the available resources and appoint drug inspectors to solve the problem.

About the large-scale use of Saunf, Chalia Supari and Panpuri among teenagers and women, he said that the food department had been issued special instructions to undertake effective measures for their total elimination.

“The electronic and print media must play a positive role in highlighting the issue,” he said.

Responding to a question about his visit to the interior Sindh, the minister said it was aimed at evaluating the problems of dispensaries ,Taluka hospitals, availability of medicines there.

Ahsan Ahmad said that it was also aimed at ascertaining]g the facts and circumstances which had led to suicide by a girl student of the Peoples Medical College, Nawabshah.—PPI