Medical associations have reached agreement on their demands for changes to the service structure of doctors employed by the Health Department, which include the creation of a new Health Management Cadre, The Express Tribune has learnt.
The doctors will also demand greater autonomy from the Health Department in running public hospitals and medical colleges when they meet on Tuesday with Punjab government officials in a committee formed last month to consider changes to the service structure, said sources in the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Medical Teachers Association (MTA) and Young Doctors Association (YDA).
The three associations have reached a consensus on the establishment of a new cadre which would “provide managerial services for optimum utilisation of resources based upon merit”, according to a draft of the proposals.
The new cadre would have 1,300 seats of which 650 would be in Basic Pay Scale-19, 442 in BPS-20, 195 in BPS-21 and 13 in BPS-22. The proposal states that 50 per cent of the BPS-19 posts should be filled by promotion from other health cadres (there are three General Cadre, Specialist Cadre and Teaching Cadre) and the rest by doctors recruited via the Punjab Public Service Commission.
Doctors in the Health Management Cadre would require an MBBS and a post-graduate degree in public health from an institution recognised by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. Sources in the three associations said that they would propose that administrative posts like medical superintendent in public hospitals and district-level posts like executive district officer (health) be filled by doctors from the new cadre. Those already serving in these positions would need to get degrees in health management within five years or be forced to quit, they said. Once the new cadre was created, doctors working at administrative posts and who had the relevant degrees would automatically be in the new cadre and their seniority would remain intact, they added.
The doctors would also propose that principals of public medical colleges and medical superintendents of public hospitals be given financial and administrative autonomy. “This would mean that they wouldn’t have to wait for the health secretary’s nod for everything, even small things like buying stationary,” the sources said. The MS or equivalent authority would have to authority to grant ex-Pakistan leave and earned leave.
The doctors will also demand time scale promotions and that annual confidential reports yearly reviews of the performance of officials employed by the government – not be mandatory for promotion.
Chief Minister’s Special Assistant on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique, who is the committee’s convener, said that any proposals submitted by the doctors would be considered.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 15th, 2012.
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A right move. Similar shoud be done with the engineering cadre.