LAHORE: As many as 45 young male and female officers hired through the competitive exams of National Testing Service (NTS) and their families are undergoing stress as the primary & secondary healthcare department (P&SHD) has refused to extend their yearly contract.

Most of the officials were hired in 2017 for the New Management Structure (NMS) through the NTS, followed by interviews conducted by the Project Management Unit (PMU) of P&SHD.

These officers having masters and MPhil qualifications were serving against various positions of BS-17 as admin officer, human resource, legal, procurement officer, audit, finance, information technology and logistics at the district and tehsil headquarters hospitals across Punjab.

The purpose of hiring young blood with sound qualification background was to revamp the state-run hospitals under the PMU of the P&SHD Punjab.

An official privy to the development told Dawn the officers ran into trouble in June this year when P&SHD Secretary Ali Jan first issued an order to call the services of these officials from their posting stations back to the health secretariat, Lahore.

He said no one from the officers was told as to why their services were recalled all of a sudden as neither any show-cause notice, charge sheet or departmental inquiry was initiated against any of them at that time. As they left their duties and reached the health secretariat, they were made to sit outside the office of the health secretary. Later, they were denied meeting with the health secretary and directed to go back to their homes to wait ‘next order’, the official said.

Then, the young officers met PMU project director Mian Tariq who told them that the action was initiated against them over ‘poor performance’.

The NMS officers revisited the health secretariat and took up the matter with the respective authorities as to why they were removed on ‘verbal orders’ of the health secretary. They got shocked when informed that the health secretary has slapped a ban on their entry to the posting stations (DHQ, THQ hospitals) saying the yearly tenure of their contract services expired on June 30 and their services were ‘no more required’.

Since then, they had been waiting at their homes as officers on special duty (OSDs) and no new instructions were issued, rendering them jobless, the official said.

One of the victims said they served the department for seven years or so and removed from the services without any inquiry, charge sheet by the department or even without a single explanation/warning and complaint against them. He said uncertainty about their future has also added woes as many of them have reached the age of over 35 or so making them unable to apply for any government job.

“This is a serious non-professionalism behaviour of the health secretary towards 45 officers and their respective families who are undergoing mental stress and financial crisis,” he said.

A few days back, he lamented they came to know that the health secretary had issued an order to the HR department to make hiring of new officers to replace those removed from their jobs.

“We have offered the health secretary to follow the rules, initiate departmental inquiry, prove allegations and then remove them from the services,” he said.

PMU project director Mian Tariq rejected the allegations of the young officers saying the health secretary took step on the basis of their poor performance which had reflected in their annual confidential reports (ACRs).

Taking to Dawn, he said the ACRs of the ‘removed officers’ were written by the heads of the DHQ/THQ hospitals. He said the ACRs were sufficient to take action against them.

He made it clear that the health secretary had nothing to do with the action against the officers because the heads of the departments of the respective officers were not satisfied with their performance.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2023