LAHORE, March 6: Punjab Paramedics Alliance Chairman Malik Munir has lambasted the health secretary and the special assistant to chief minister on health for what he said inordinate delay in implementation of the already settled issues of the paramedics.

Addressing a rally of the paramedics at the Jinnah Hospital on Wednesday, he said: “Health Secretary Arif Nadeem and Special Assistant to Chief Minister Khwaja Salman Rafique are responsible for bleak future of over 100,000 paramedics of the province.”

He said differences between the medical community and the chief minister deepened since the two officials are at the helm of health affairs.

“Shahbaz Sharif had time and again promised to fulfil our demands in some meetings and he approved some summaries. But both the officials created hurdles and CM’s orders are yet to be implemented.”

Malik Munir said the chief minister had approved a summary on Nov 24, 2011 regarding the upgradation of posts of all the allied health professionals working at government hospitals of Punjab in grade 5 to 17. But the health department did not issue a notification to the effect.

He said Shahbaz Sharif had approved a summary some six months ago regarding monthly health risk allowance of Rs1,500 for paramedics working in grade 1 to 5 and CM’s order again met with the same fate.

He said the chief minister had directed the health department to ensure regularisation of employees recruited by the Boards of Management (BoMs) of teaching hospitals in Punjab on contract basis. However, the order was not implemented despite a lapse of six months.

Malik said the chief minister had approved Rs5.2 billion additional grant in July 2012 for doctors, nurses and paramedics shortly after a 37-day long strike of the young doctors.

Of the total funds, he said, Rs370 million were allocated for the paramedics under the head of health professional allowance. “Since then doctors and nurses have been enjoying the incentive but not a single penny was given to paramedics from the allocation.”

He also highlighted the issue of pay protection saying that the doctors and nurses were getting the same but paramedics had been ignored.

“This showed that the health authorities are deliberately victimising the poor employees of state-run hospitals,” Munir said.

He alleged that Salman Rafique had deceived the paramedics when they besieged the CM’s House and ended the agitation on Dec 22, 2012 on his assurance that their demands would be fulfilled within two weeks.

Since then neither Khwaja Salman nor the health secretary met the PPA leaders, Malik said and threatened to extend protest to other districts in case of further delay.