LAHORE, March 7: The Punjab health department has yet to order recruitment of the doctors for district headquarter hospitals who were selected by the DCOs around two months ago.

This was revealed during a marathon meeting of all DCOs of the province, presided over by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi here on Tuesday night.

The chief minister and Chief Secretary Salman Siddique, took a serious notice of the revelation, asking the health secretary to explain the delay.

The complaint about the issue was reportedly made by Toba Tek Singh DCO who said he had selected specialist doctors for the area’s DHQ hospital and sent the list to the health department over two months ago for appointment. But, he said, nothing had been done in this regard so far.

Sources said when inquired by the chief minister it was revealed that almost all districts faced a similar situation.

Sources said the chief minister asked the DCOs to concentrate on improving law and order in their respective jurisdictions and ensure service delivery, resisting all sorts of political pressure.

The sources said the chief minister threw his weight behind the DCOs while asking them to function independent of political pressure because he wanted positive results of his various reform programmes before the general elections. He also asked them to adopt measures to control inflation to provide relief to people. —Intikhab Hanif