PESHAWAR: Public sector hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are facing acute shortage of nurses and other technical staffers as most of trained health workers are leaving the country for jobs in Middle Eastern countries, according to sources.

“We are extremely short of nursing staff because more than 100 nurses have left for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar during the last few months. We cannot hire staff due to ban imposed on new recruitments by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP),” a doctor at one of the medical teaching institutions in Peshawar told this scribe.

He said that nurses got information about available positions in foreign countries on the website of Bureau of Immigration and Overseas Employment and applied online for the posts where most of them got selected.

A male nurse, who is set to leave for United Arab Emirate later this week, told Dawn that he was getting Rs100,000 salary per month despite having more than 10-year experience but the hospital where he was going offered him about Rs800,000 per month.

Most of health workers leaving for jobs in Middle East

A senior surgeon at one of the hospitals in provincial metropolis told this scribe that not only nurses but paramedics such as anaesthesia, operation theatre, laboratory and cardiology technicians were also in high demand in Middle Eastern countries owing to which they found it better to get jobs there.

“We are losing a lot of nursing staff to Middle East while it is in my knowledge that many other technical staffers are also making efforts to leave the country,” he said.

He said that those health workers were readily accepted in Middle East because of their experiences in the best hospitals along with degrees issued to them by public sector institutions and registration with Pakistan Nursing Council and Council of Health Sciences Pakistan.

“Of late, the situation has become very difficult for nurses and paramedics because of the issues of their salaries, especially in the medical teaching institutions. They see it a blessing to land in a foreign country and be able to earn more money. Even the doctors, who have joined MTIs, are weighing options to resign and go abroad,” said the surgeon.

He said that the consultants, who were appointed for three years on contractual basis at local hospitals in accordance with Medical Teaching Institution Reforms Act (MTIRA) 2015, were upset over the stoppage of Sehat Card Plus, the free health insurance programme of the government, because they earned a handsome amount through the scheme.

“But now they have to take only their salaries as all MTIs have stopped SCP. Even from their salaries, income tax is deducted at source,” he said. He added that MTI consultants were not allowed to do practice outside the hospitals where they were employed.

The director of a Peshawar-based MTI told Dawn that they had been requesting ECP to relax the ban on appointment of nurses and technicians so that they could appoint new health workers on the posts lying vacant due to resignations of staff.

“The exodus continues as our employees are getting jobs because it has become too easy to apply through internet and get selected,” he said.

He said that such jobs were also advertised on the social media pages of the Middle East-based hospitals and the aspiring candidates had no issue in sending applications for recruitment. “These are technical positions and we want to fill them because in coming months, it will negatively impact patient care,” he added.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2023