PESHAWAR, March 8: More than 60 senior doctors appointed through departmental selection committees at the three teaching hospitals are awaiting their regularization, officials said.
The NWFP health department had appointed about 60 senior registrars (SRs) at the three teaching hospitals - Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) - in October 2002 after holding interviews through the respective selection committees at these hospitals.
Most of the appointees had already been working as regular employees under the health department before they were promoted to the posts of SRs. The aggrieved doctors told Dawn that the services and general administration department (S&GAD) had issued directives to the health department on April 16, 2003, asking it to regularize the services of these doctors as SRs as they happened to be regular employees of the health department.
The orders came in the wake of cabinet's decision on March 12 last year, wherein the government's contract policy had been approved with incorporation of an amendment. But the officials, the doctors added, were using dilly-dallying tactics to regularize them. According to them, the future about 60 specialist doctor was at stake. They worked as specialists in medicines, surgery, nephrology, gynaecology and orthopaedic, etc.
"The posts of SRs had fallen vacant in lieu of the resignations of some 40 senior-most consultants against the introduction of the institution-based practice (IBP)," said a doctor.
Doctors said the military-led government, which had introduced the IBP, had promoted these doctors to fill the gap created by the resignations of the senior consultants, but the MMA government was adamant to regularize them.
Officials, citing the notification of Nov 12, 2003, of the health department, said all the regular government employees appointed on contractual basis will be considered to have the status of regular employees.
Subsequently, the chief executive of the LRH on Nov 24 dispatched a list of such regular employees who had been promoted on contract posts as SRs and assistant professors for regularization of their jobs.
The health department, in negation of its own notification however, issued another order on Dec 12 wherein an amendment in contract policy had been made in which the department had argued that the cabinet decision applied only to those employees who had been selected through the Public Service Commission for a certain post and then promoted to higher post on contractual basis.
Another notification was issued by the health department on Feb 26, asking the hospitals' chief executives to send the names of doctors for regularization of their jobs through autonomy act. So, the LRH CE furnished the names of nine doctors, which were also not considered.
Besides, the Services Tribunal on Feb 16, this year, delivered a verdict according to which the services of the SR of LRH neurology ward, Dr Adnan Khan, had been termed as regular.
Officials at the health secretariat argue that the services of those doctors would be regularised who had been selected through the Public Service Commission for a particular post and were promoted to senior positions later on.
The cases of those employees would not be considered for promotion to regular posts who had been appointed by departmental selection committees of the hospitals.
The affected doctors said they had also been appointed under autonomy act, but the department was using delaying tactics in their bid to accommodate their favourites.
They said a doctor who appeared in the interview for the post of SR on June 26, 2001, had been appointed as regular employee through a notification issued by the chief executive of the LRH on March 23, 2003.
According to the affected doctors, they had also been appointed by department selection committees after the promulgation of autonomy act. But now the department selection committees had been renamed as institutional management committees (IMCs).
They said they had saved the hospital wards from de-recognition by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) and served the institutions at a time when most of the senior doctors had left the hospitals against the introduction of the IBP by the then military-led government.