PESHAWAR: About 1,500 doctors have been looking towards the health department for preparation of working paper to be presented before the Provincial Selection Board for their promotion.

“The working paper has not been prepared by the health department owing to which the doctors can’t be promoted to next grades,” sources told this scribe.

They said the government approved the long-awaited promotion of general cadre doctors and asked the health department to prepare working paper to be presented in the meeting of Provincial Section Board (PSB).

The finance department has approved promotion of 1,375 general cadre doctors after consistent demand by the medics to implement the four-tier formula. The formula was approved in 2012 but it remained in limbo till its first phase was partly implemented in 2017 and over 300 doctors were promoted.

Sources say working paper for the purpose has not been prepared by health dept

A notification regarding enforcement of its second phase was issued in August 2018 but there was delay on part of health department owing to which the promotions couldn’t be materialised. As a rule, the department has to send a working paper to PSB meeting for approval of promotion.

“Unlike doctors, the officers of other line departments get regular promotion because of the preparation of the working paper in the PSB meeting,” said sources. They said that doctors had been missing the chances of promotion for the last 16 months as health department was not sending their cases timely to the board.

Sources said that none of the doctors got promotion in the PSB meetings held in August 2018, December 2018 and February 2019. In April 2019, only 240 doctors were promoted to BPS-19 against 600 vacant positions while the others were still awaiting promotion to higher grades, they added.

The second phase of the formula was supposed to be implemented in July 2018 but despite the finance department’s approval, health department failed to forward the cases of doctors to the board. Every government department is required to prepare working paper regarding the promotion cases of its employees to be presented in the PSB meeting wherein promotions are approved.

According to approval by finance department, the mass promotion includes 700 from BPS-17 to BPS-18; 550 from BPS-18 toBPS-19 and 125 from BPS-19 to PBS-20 but it is depended on the health department to expedite the process.

Sources said that director-general health services sent the case to health secretary where the section officer concerned was working to sort out cases and send working papers after due scrutiny of the doctors.

“Most of the doctors have been waiting for promotion for more than 15 years while many have retired without promotion into next grades despite their legal right according to the four-tier formula but that hasn’t been implemented fully,” said sources.

They said that there was no service structure for the doctors till approval of the four-tier formula eight years back following long struggle by representatives of doctors.

The doctors said that new graduates were joining private hospitals where they got better benefits than the government service.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2019