For equal rights: Clerks to protest rejection of health professional allowance

All employees except for doctors, nurses, paramedics will participate

PESHAWAR: Members of All Pakistan Clerk Association (APCA) K-P chapter have decided to protest outside District Health Office Peshawar on July 27 to demand health professional allowance.

This was decided at a meeting of APCA and other health officials held at a hotel in the city on Saturday.

While talking to journalists on the occasion, APCA K-P President Muhammad Aslam Khan, who chaired the meeting, said Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has rejected the summary for the provision of health professional allowance to the technical and clerical employees of the health department.

The health directorate of the province had forwarded the summary of the allowance to Khattak.

“However, it was rejected without any logical explanation,” Aslam added.

Impacts

The strike announced by members of the association is likely to have adverse effects on the health service institutions across the province. Three major hospitals of Peshawar would be partially closed on July 27, the day of the protest.

Aslam said the employees of Lady Reading Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex, Khyber Teaching Hospital and all the employees of other health related institutes will be present at the protest.

APCA K-P Media Coordination Muhammad Fayaz Gul said barring doctors, nurses and paramedics all employees of the health department in K-P, including employees of three major hospitals and district health officials have strongly criticised the chief minister’s decision to reject the summary for health professional allowance.

Decrying bias

Gul said it is against the spirit of the Constitution when some of the employees of the same department are deprived of an allowance that others enjoy.

He added doctors, nurses and paramedics were given the health professional allowances but technical, clerical and Class-IV employees were deprived of the allowance.

APCA K-P General Secretary Sajjad Yousafzai said health professional allowance is the rights of each and every government employee. He added all other government departments of the province were given the right except those providing health-related services in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2016.