PESHAWAR: Khyber Teaching Hospital has decided to repatriate civil servants to health department as their services couldn’t be converted to the new grading system according to the decision taken by its Board of Governors.

The administration of the medical teaching institution has done way with all civil employees from BPS-1 to 20 because they cannot be adjusted in the new grading system decided by the BoG.

According to a notification, issued here on Wednesday, the measure has been taken in view of BoG’s decision on October 5, 2022 wherein uniform grading system has been approved for the employees of Khyber Teaching Hospital, Khyber Medical College and Khyber College of Dentistry.

The notification said that as per board’s decision, the positions from BPS-1 to 20 had been abolished and converted into new grading system. The board, it said, had also directed the administration to adopt new grading system and new salary structure.

Provincial Doctors Association announces protest against the decision

The KTH director in a letter to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa director-general health services said that with the abolition of basic pay scale, it was not possible to adjust their civil servants in the new system. The salaries of civil servants could not be adjusted in the new system owing to legal and technical issues, it said.

Meanwhile, Provincial Doctors Association has opposed the move, saying the posts of civil servants cannot be converted or abolished by MTIs as they have been appointed through Public Service Commission and are entitled to all benefits like other employees working in other government departments.

It said that those positions were reflected in the regular budget of government and couldn’t be converted to contractual posts at MTIs. It said that those civil servants played instrumental part in provision of healthcare facilities to patients and their displacement from MTIs would hamper the services.

PDA said that it would launch protest against what it called illegal step. It asked the BoG of KTH to revoke the decision and let the civil servants including doctors, nurses, paramedics and Class-IV employees to work as usual.

It said that health department in 2019 had made it categorically clear in a notification that post of civil servants could neither be abolished nor converted to MTI employees.

The association said that if the notification was implemented, more than 1,400 civil servants would be transferred from MTIs that would cripple the system. It asked the administration to desist from talking such steps for the sake of patients and the employees, who had been working in the hospitals and their affiliated institutions for decades.

According to hospital sources, KTH will transfer civil servants to health department and will appoint its own employees. “Other medical teaching institutions will follow suit,” they added.

The implementation of Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, in 10 hospitals and their affiliated medical colleges has left no room for civil servants.

All the medical teaching institutions are run by their respective BoGs that have the powers to make recruitments as per their own needs. The boards can abolish and re-designate any position. Each of the MTIs receives one-line budget from the government and spends the same according to its own needs.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2023