ISLAMABAD, Aug 8: The federal government is considering increasing stipend of doctors working as trainee medical officers in the capital's two hospitals, a health ministry official told Dawn.
When contacted, adviser to the health ministry on health and education affairs, Dr Najib Khan, said the proposal came under discussion during a meeting at the ministry. He said the final decision would be taken once the financial nitty gritty of the matter was worked out by the relevant officials.
Documents obtained by Dawn show that professional doctors getting postgraduate training in the capital's two government hospitals were treated as semi-skilled labourers in terms of remuneration by the government.
Interviews showed that some 300 doctors currently pursuing postgraduate training in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and the Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH) had a deep sense of humiliation because of a discriminatory pay structure.
After putting in six precious years of their life in getting medical education and house job, the trainee doctors put in a minimum of 100 hours per week but get less pay than non-professional 'Babus' in most federal government ministries.
Different pay structures for doctors working in the federal government hospitals in the capital represents marked disparity with their companions in the Punjab causing resentment among the different categories of postgraduate doctors, house officers and trainee RMOs.
The Punjab government has recently enhanced the rate of stipend to five figures for the TRMOs and PGs but in the federal capital, the doctors complained they continued to be treated as semi-skilled labourers with a stipend of just Rs6,000 per month for TRMOs.
According to doctors, the 'Babus' in the finance division while revising the stipend of the postgraduate students and trainee medical officers fixed the remunerations at rates which are incompatible with living cost in Islamabad.
The finance division fixed the stipends for house officers at Rs5,000 while for the TRMOs at Rs6,210 per month in the federal capital's hospitals. Even the payment of stipend is conditional to availability of funds and the doctors putting in more than 100 hours per week have no forum to agitate their exploitation in case of non-payment of stipend.
If the funds are not available, no stipend would be granted to the doctors with retrospective effect in any case even though they have been working for long hours.
The doctors on postgraduate training, while talking to Dawn, said the arbitrary discretion of the authorities empowered them to terminate the training at any time on just 24 hours notice without assigning any reason.
The doctors said besides the disparity of stipends, they were not entitled to health care for themselves or their primary dependents in the hospitals they work.
Pointing out another problem faced by the TRMOs and PGs, doctors said hostel accommodation for female doctors was virtually non-existent in the hospitals while both the hospitals had hostel accommodation for the female paramedical staff.
In the FGSH, the female doctors are residing in the gynae mess with only three rooms of accommodation while in Pims they share accommodation with paramedical staff. Moreover, Dawn learnt that the two hospitals do not provide accommodation for married trainee doctors which created many problems for the married doctors pursuing postgraduate training.