PESHAWAR, Jan 4: Doctors working on contract for the health department have expressed their resentment over the government’s move to terminate their services. They have demanded of the authorities to give them permanent positions.

The government terminated the services of about 400 contract doctors on July 31, 2007 even though they had been working in remote areas of the province since 1995, a group of affected doctors told Dawn. They said that instead of giving them regular jobs, as had been promised by the-then chief minister, their services were terminated.

They claimed that successive provincial governments had appointed 1,200 doctors on contracts. The future of these doctors, working in government-run hospitals, dispensaries and basic health units, has been uncertain because the government has been appointing fresh graduates on regular posts through the Public Service Commission (PSC).

According to them, most of the affected doctors have cleared the PSC tests and interviews for regular posts but they could not be appointed because of zonal limits on vacancies.

They said that contract doctors, including graduates of 1988, had to compete with fresh graduates in PSC interviews. Over the years, they said, they had become over-aged and their seniority was not taken into consideration for appointment on regular posts.

“We have gained experience and completed different courses, on which the government has spent millions of rupees. The Sindh Assembly, through a bill, has regularised the jobs of doctors like us, while there is no contract employment in other provinces,” they said.

According to them, the NWFP Employees on Contract Basis (Regularisation of Services) Act, 1989, reads: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force, any civil servant, who is, or has been, appointed or deemed to have been appointed against any post in any government department under Section 3 of this act shall be deemed to have been regularly appointed from the date of his/her continuous officiation, subject to eligibility, according to the service rules applicable to the post, verified by the administrative secretary of the department concerned.”

The PSC, under Section 4 of the 1983 Functions and Rules, has no authority to conduct interviews for contract posts. The law reforms committee of the last NWFP Assembly had said that the PSC could not conduct interviews for appointments on contract basis.

“Every government since 1995 has promised to regularise our jobs but none of them kept their word,” said a doctor. “We have been doing without annual increments and other benefits, which is against the rules,” he said.

The last government had formed a committee to look into regularisation of their jobs, but it did not hold any meeting. Some affected doctors said their contracts were renewed on the recommendation of medical superintendents and executive district officers but the MMA government had linked the contracts’ renewal to PSC tests.