MULTAN, Feb 9: The Punjab Health Department has retained a number of division-level posts rather than abolishing them after the introduction of district governments system.

There were eight health department directorates at the as many divisional headquarters in the province. Each directorate had seven posts — health services director, health services additional director, assistant director (nursing), divisional drug inspector, statistical officer, district health education officer and communicable disease control officer.

After the introduction of the district governments system, the divisional posts were likely to be abolished. But the health department has retained them and in some cases changed their titles.

The post of health services director has been renamed as executive district officer (health).

The BS-19 post of health services additional director has been renamed as district officer (health) at the former eight divisional headquarters.

The post of district health officer (DHO) in the districts has also been given the title of district officer (health). At present there are two district officers (health) in the eight former divisional headquarters. The job description of the two DOs (health) in one district has yet to be sorted out.

The BS-17 posts of assistant director (nursing), BS-18 posts of divisional drug inspectors, BS-17 posts of statistical officer, BS-17 posts of divisional health education officer and BS-16 posts of communicable disease control officer have been retained in the former divisional headquarters.

There were posts of CDC officers at the district level. Now the former divisional headquarters will also have two CDC officers each.

Similarly, some districts have two, three and four posts of drug inspectors.

The Punjab health secretary has recently notified the strength and budget of the 34 offices of the EDO (health) in the province.

All EDO offices in the province will have 129 gazetted and 546 non-gazetted officials. The governor has also approved the Rs60.11 million budget for the establishment of EDOs (health) offices. Of the allocation, Rs42.31 million will be spent as establishment charges, Rs14.74 million as commodity and services expenses and Rs3.04 million as maintenance and repair expenses. This shows that more than 70 per cent of the EDO offices’ budget for the ongoing fiscal year will be spent to pay salaries of the staff.