Service structure: Senator Ishaq Dar to chair ‘decisive meeting’

‘Though we are close to an agreement, more meetings might be needed’.

LAHORE:

A meeting between the representatives of doctors’ associations and the Punjab government will take place at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on Saturday.

Senator Ishaq Dar, the chairman of the committee formed to finalise a new service structure for the doctors, will chair the meeting according to a notification issued by the government.

Officials in the Health Department believe this could be the final meeting on the issue and that an announcement may follow the Saturday meeting. Office bearers of Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab say that they “are close to an agreement”. They were quick to add, however, that the Saturday meeting might not be the last.

YDA representative Dr Amir Bandesha, who has been part of the negotiations with the government, told The Express Tribune the association had requested the Health Department to hold a meeting with the YDA team before going into the meeting with Ishaq Dar. “We want a draft of the service structure agreed on to discuss with our general council. So far we haven’t received any intimation by the Health Department about the meeting or received a draft.”

Dr Bandesha said the Punjab government had offered to fill in 4,000 posts in Grade 18 but that would not be a time-scale promotion. “If we are to give up our demand to for induction in grade 18 then we want a service structure. We want the government to create a Working Group that oversees the doctors’ promotion so that there in no backlog,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th, 2012.