PESHAWAR: Health department has expressed concerns over self-created posts at hospitals and asked the administrators to do away with such positions immediately as these have not been reflected in the budgetary book.

A notification, issued by the office of director-general health services Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to all district health officers (DHOs) and medical superintendents of Category-A and B hospitals, has directed them to abolish the positions of supervisors of different cadres at the facility level forthwith as those slots have been created illegally and the people holding the posts have no legitimate standing.

The notification, also sent to health adviser and health secretary, said that it had been observed with immense concern during the visits of monitoring and evaluation staff to different hospitals that such self-created positions were giving relief to Class-IV supervisors and paramedic supervisors etc only to allow them to shun their basic duty, which was against the law.

Instead of bringing any improvement, the people working on those positions were creating administrative issues at hospitals, leading to adversely affecting the patient care, it said.

Issued by additional director-general health services, the notification ordered immediate discontinuation of such posts in the best interest of patients.

Health dept says such positions not reflected in budget

It said that those designations were not reflected in the budget book in the offices and health facilities.

To maintain proper administrative discipline and ensure smooth delivery of services, MS and DHOs have been directed to refrain from issuing all such office orders in future.

Officials said that there were about 2,550 big and small health facilities in the province, including 26 district headquarters hospitals (DHQs), where medical superintendents and deputy superintendents nominated supervisors of paramedics, Class-IV and other employees at their own.

They said that those employees were close to relevant administration and were awarded such positions unlawfully, allowing them not to perform their basic duty of dealing with patients and chase the employees.

They said that the people holding such positions worked as personal servants of their officers instead of taking care of patients for which they were drawing salaries from the government’s kitty.

They said that the department had about 60,000 employees, who were supposed to provide healthcare facilities to the patients visiting public sector hospitals, but score of employees were enjoying the blessing of administration in the respective health facilities and did not perform duty, which hampered patient care.

The notification said that it was essential to recognise that those positions did not exist in the hospitals and had not any official credential.

“All staffers are required to perform their duty as assigned under their regular designations without deviation,” it added.

It said that high-ups at the hospitals were ordered to comply with the directives as it was mandatory to uphold departmental standards and operational efficiency.

Officials said that not only the administrative staff had assigned those illegal positions to their blue eyed employees at the hospitals but they had also deputed Class-IV employees to perform duty in their homes. The notification has asked them to do away with such positions or face disciplinary action.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2024