Vacancies: 1,800 govt jobs open up for doctors

Promotions and departures leave health department short on personnel.

KARACHI:

The recent promotions of doctors have opened up almost 1,800 jobs for grade-17 health officers, prompting the Pakistan Medical Association to press the government to start hiring.

In a press release, the PMA said that 300 other doctors had left their jobs — either to go abroad or for some other reason.

“It is now the responsibility of the health department to fill these posts as soon as possible so that both the state and medical professionals could benefit,” PMA Sindh president Dr Samrina Hashmi told The Express Tribune. She added that the hiring should be based on merit and done through the public service commission and not on a contract. “This would ensure that there are no controversies later over regularisation and other issues,” she said.

Dr Hashmi explained that a lot of young doctors are unemployed and basic health units are in dire need of human resource. “We simply believe that a sympathetic view from the government would help fill the vacancies and also address the unrest prevalent among doctors in Sindh.” She urged the health department to tackle this as soon as possible.

For his part, however, health secretary Hashim Raza Zaidi said that they would only announce vacancies once the promotions had gone through. He added that grade 17 to 18 promotions of the doctors had been only recently ordered, and the promotion board has sent the cases to the Services and General Administration Department to be processsed.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2011.