Govt ordered to promote 11,000 MBBS doctors

SHC Sukkur Bench orders the government to promote 11,000 MBBS doctors and increase their pay within three months.

SUKKUR: The Sindh High Court Sukkur Bench ordered the government on Wednesday to promote 11,000 MBBS doctors and increase their pay within three months.

Justices Faisal Arab and Tufail G Ebrahim issued the orders on a constitutional petition filed by 175 doctors. The petition said that doctors appointed after 1987 to pay-scale 17 have not been promoted.

In other provinces, doctors are promoted on a time-scale basis, but in Sindh, doctors have been stuck at pay-scales 17 and 18 for over 20 years and are on the verge of retiring, said their lawyer Shabbir Shar. During the last hearing on February 17, the health secretary’s representative accepted that doctors have been working at pay-scale 17 for over 15 years and deserve promotions.

The Sindh health and finance secretaries were reissued notices to present their comments at the next hearing on Wednesday, March 2. However, the lawyer said that no government representatives appeared in court so the court ordered the promotions.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2011.