KARACHI, Nov 17: The outgoing health minister of Sindh, Syed Sardar Ahmad, has said that no appointment of doctors, nurses and paramedical or technical staff would be made in the remaining days of the present government, which is destined to be dissolved on November 20.

Talking to Dawn on Friday, Mr Ahmad, who is also a senior minister in the existing Sindh cabinet, said that not a single appointment would be made in haste or in violation of the recruitment criteria of the department already approved by the competent authority. “I have lately advised the officers concerned in the department to conduct the interviews of the applicants who had (passed) the written tests in due course of time and not to adopt any shortcut,” he added.

Written tests of applicants who had applied for jobs against vacancies in the general (grade 17) and specialist cadre (grade 18) of doctors and the nursing cadre (grade 16) in the Sindh health department were held on Nov 4 and the results have also been issued by the test-conducting agency recently.

The minister said that those who secured 40 per cent or above marks would be called for the interviews most probably during the period of the interim government.

However, he regretted that the turn-up of doctors for the specialist cadre and nurses for grade 16 jobs did not match the number of posts available across the province. “A shortage of doctors and nurses in government hospitals, particularly those located in remote and rural areas, remained a serious issue. But I am now hopeful that government hospitals would finally get competent and caring doctors and nurses, who would be appointed on three-year contracts,” he said.

According to official data, the provincial health department had also tested about 26,500 candidates for appointments in two categories: BPS 5 to BPS 11 and BPS 12 to BPS 15 on June 3. The officials of the department, however, have not been able to declare the results of the written tests; they maintain that they purely worked in line with the directives of their high-ups.

Regarding the recruitment of BPS 5-15 health staffers, the health minister said that the results of candidates could not be announced due to the absence of approved criteria regarding the cut-off marks for the test, which was to be given by the chief minister. Now it has been decided that those who have secured 33 per cent or more would be eligible for the interviews and appointments, he added, saying that various committees would be tasked to interview the successful candidates at the district level after the announcement of the results.