Punjab govt completes consultations over MTI law

YDA rejects proposed law, wants govt to withdraw it

RAWALPINDI: Even as medical practitioners in Rawalpindi protest against it, the provincial government seems to have decided in principle to introduce the medical teaching institutions (MTI) framework to replace the current service structure.

The government intends to bring a law for this purpose in the provincial assembly which will provide a phase-wise implementation of the framework.

Created on the lines of the MTI law in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), the Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid has drafted the law after completing consultations with all the vice chancellors of medical universities and the health officials concerned.

Once approved by the provincial cabinet, the draft law is expected to be presented before the Punjab Assembly for approval sometime this year.

Under the MTI, new doctors and paramedical staff will be appointed on contracts. As doctors keep retiring, phase-wise, new doctors and paramedical staff appointed under the new service structure will take over.

Those appointed according to the new structure will serve for three years while they will not have permission to form an association such as the Young Doctors Association (YDA).

When the new structure is implemented, doctors will be allowed to conduct private practices in the hospitals and outside the hospitals.

However, those doctors who are practicing outside the hospital will have their professional medical allowances removed from their salary package.

Moreover, the hospitals will be run by a board of governors. Further, the civil servant law will be abolished.

However, those working under the current service structure will receive pensions after retirement but the doctors and paramedical staff appointed under the new structure will not have the right to a pension.

The YDA in Punjab has rejected the proposed MTI law and have demanded that the government withdraw it. On Tuesday, paramedics in Rawalpindi had staged a demonstration at Fawara Chowk while YDA members had also raised slogans against the proposed law in their protest on Murree Road.

However, informed sources have said that the implementation of the MTI law is inevitable as part of the incumbent government’s vision for ensuring the provision of quality treatment on priority at government-run hospitals. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2019.