Approved upgradation: Pims staff seeks changes in new service structure

Threaten to move the apex court, say the package is stripping their civic servant rights.

ISLAMABAD:

Employees of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) threatened Ministry of Health to move the Supreme Court of Pakistan if their demands are not met before the upcoming budget.

Permanent employees of Pims, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, announced this during a general body meeting at the hospital’s auditorium on Thursday. They decided to ask Chief Justice of Pakistan to take suo moto action against the health ministry if it fails to deliver as promised.

The employees stated that under the newly proposed service structure they are “losing their civil servant rights” as they are being given an irrevocable choice between Basic Pay Scale (BPS) and Personal Pay Scales (HPS). If one opts for BPS, he/she will be excluded from auto-promotion structure and deprived of health allowances.

“We demanded a service structure for auto-promotion to higher grade for all medical and non-medical employees, including both gazette and non-gazetted officials with an existing BPS,” said an official of Pims, requesting anonymity.

He said that since the new service structure was approved and announced on May 1, the doctors had been demanding the health ministry to make amends to it, “but our plea is not
being heard”.

According to the new service structure, all medical staffs working in BPS-17 have been shifted to HPS-9, but non-medical staffs are still in BPS-17/HPS-8. Due to this discriminatory rule, newly appointed doctors will be declared senior from the non-medical staffs who have been working in BPS-17 for the past 15 to 20 years. The official said that few people are availing benefits of upgradation to HPS, while some others are losing their seniority.

Nurses who were granted BPS-16 after years of struggle will again be equal to their previous grade of BPS-14, while an assistant at BPS-14 will now be equal to a superintendent in BPS-16.

Moreover, a point in the new service structure stating that no compensation shall be entitled on transfer from BPS to HSP “is ambiguous”, the official added.

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