Sindh approves health risk allowance for medical staff

Even as the Sindh government approved on Thursday the provision of health risk allowance to medical personnel battling the coronavirus pandemic on the frontlines, it failed to placate the disgruntled health workers who were promised the provision of the allowance from March this year.

Instead, a notification issued by the finance department on Thursday said that Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had approved the provision of the health risk allowance, applicable from July 1.

According to the notification, the allowance will cover health workers, including house job officers, postgraduate professionals and nursing students and staff, employed at government hospitals and medical centres across Sindh.

It stated that grade-1 to grade-16 employees will be issued Rs17,000 per month on account of health risk allowance, grade-17 nurses and those senior to them are to receive Rs35,000 per month, postgraduate professionals will be given Rs15,000 per month, house job officer Rs10,000 and nursing students Rs5,500.

Taking exception to the delay in provision of the allowance, however, the Grand Health Allowance (GHA) has demanded that the allowance be made applicable from March, as was assured by Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani.

The representatives of the GHA said that the ministers had met them while they were protesting and assured that the allowance would be provided from March.

Their promise was never realised, they decried, saying that they delay in the allowance's provision was a breach of the agreement reached between the two parties.

Rejecting the government's decision, they pointed out that they were working round the clock during a pandemic.

However, they ruled out the possibility of staging another protest and said that they would resolve the issue through negotiation.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2020.