Healthcare: Six weeks after rescuing govt, new doctors still not paid

Doctors were recruited during YDA strike at public hospitals.

LAHORE: Doctors recruited on an ad hoc basis and through the Punjab Public Service Commission to man government hospitals during the Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab strike have still not been paid their first salaries, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Ad hoc doctors said that they had been working for a month and a half without pay. “Health Department officials are telling us that the payment has been delayed due to the strike by employees of the AG’s Office. But the salaries of regular doctors have been released. We don’t understand why there is a delay in our salaries,” said one doctor recruited through the PPSC who is serving at Mayo Hospital.

A Health Department official said that the doctors had been recruited during the strike at teaching hospitals to fill the shortage created by the YDA strike. He said there were no vacant seats in several teaching hospitals so the recruited doctors would have to be adjusted at positions in district headquarters hospitals or tehsil headquarters hospitals for their salaries to be issued. He said their salaries would be issued once this task is completed.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2012.