ISLAMABAD: The Federal Health Alliance (FHA), a representative body of five hospitals of the federal capital, on Wednesday deferred its decision to shut down out-patient departments (OPDs) from Thursday (today) and instead extended its deadline by two weeks.

Since the government is set to change, the FHA decided to give two weeks to the caretaker setup to restore the health risk allowance which had been frozen in 2015 and not been restored till date.

“Although we had decided to close the OPDs of all five hospitals of Islamabad from Thursday, we have now given a deadline of two weeks to the caretaker government to restore the allowance,” a representative of employees, Tanveer Noshahi, told Dawn.

During a meeting on Wednesday, the participants gave 15 days ultimatum to the health ministry and announced that the OPDs of Pims, Polyclinic, National Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine and other hospitals will be closed if the allowance was not restored in a fortnight.

FHA President Qamar Gujar told Dawn that the allowance was approved in 2013 but frozen by the then finance minister, Ishaq Dar, in 2015.

“An executive allowance has been given to employees of a number of departments. This year, they have gotten almost 40pc allowance and two scales but we have been ignored,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2023