On hold: PHC stays doctors’ appointment after petitioners challenge process

Those with foreign degrees are given lesser marks than locally qualified ones

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court stayed the appointment of 1,100 ad hoc doctors on Wednesday.

The order was issued by PHC Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel who issued notices to the secretary and director general of the health department, seeking their replies within 15 days.

The chief justice said daily experiments had destroyed the health system and the provision of facilities had deteriorated.

The division bench, headed by the chief justice, issued the stay on petitions filed by Dr Raheel and Dr Umer Habib, along with four others, through their counsel Khalid Rahman.

Accused of discrimination

When the hearing commenced, Rahman told the bench the petitioners have completed Doctor of Medicine (MD) degrees from foreign countries. He added they returned to serve people in their own country and were even registered with Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).

However, he said, whenever the health department advertises posts, it gives preference to doctors who have degrees in medicine from universities inside the country.



“The applicants with degrees [related to medicine] from local universities are given 60 to 70 [out of 100] marks, while those who have degrees from foreign universities are given only 30 marks, which is discrimination,” he said.

Rahman added there was neither a specific policy nor a notification to justify the distribution of marks. Rather, the practice is being done under a proforma, he stated.

‘Faulty’ process

He told the bench the health department had recently started recruiting 1,100 doctors to work ad hoc basis at different hospitals where they will be hired under a policy of the Public Service Commission.

He argued that under this policy, the department gave preference to people with MBBS degrees from local medical colleges over those with MD degrees from abroad. He said this was illegal as it sent the latter well down the merit list.

Therefore, he requested the bench to stay the recruitment and order the authority to treat the petitioners equally.

To this, the chief justice asked why the department was being discriminatory when the doctors were registered with PMDC.

Additional Advocate General Waqar Ahmed replied hiring was being done to provide better health care facilities as the department was faced with a shortage of medical practitioners. He requested the bench not to stay the recruitment.

The chief justice remarked the situation at hospitals was deteriorating instead of improving due to “experiments”. Therefore, he stayed the recruitment and ordered the respondents to file replies within 15 days.

Appointment at KTH stayed

The same bench, while hearing another petition filed by Dr Mustafa of Khyber Teaching Hospital, stayed the appointments of dean and director of the medical facility and ordered the secretary and director general of the health department to file replies to the petition.



Khalid Anwar, the petitioner’s counsel, said his client was an eye specialist and head of Ophthalmology Department of KTH. He said the provincial government meritoriously promoted three senior doctors in December 2015 to Grade-21. The doctors were Dr Noorul Iman, Dr Mehmud Aurangzeb and Dr Mukhtiar Zaman.

Anwar added as per Medical and Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, a list would be prepared through a proper procedure to promote doctors who merged their services or remained civil servants. However, no such list was prepared and the health secretary promoted them in an action which violated the rules.

He said the petitioner was the senior most, but ignored in the process.

Therefore, Anwar requested the bench to stay the appointments.

After hearing the arguments, the bench issued notice to the respondent and stayed appointment of the elevated doctors as dean and medical director of KTH.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2016.