Free labour?: ‘Replacement’ doctors unpaid for four months

Hired to avoid crisis during the YDA strikes, many of them have never been paid.

RAWALPINDI:

Over 100 doctors were inducted in Rawalpindi’s government hospitals by the Punjab government this year to lessen the impact of strikes by young doctors. While the strikes have fizzled out, the replacement doctors have gone unpaid for the last four months.

Doctors were employed through the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) and on ad hoc basis in June and July this year after Young Doctors Association (YDA) members went on strike to push the health department for a new service structure, higher pay and other demands.

Although the Punjab government caved in to the YDA last Wednesday and accepted all of their demands including provision proper service structure, the doctors who were hired to take care of the patients at Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital and District Headquarter Hospital remain unpaid.

Doctors awaiting salaries and senior staff at the three hospitals revealed that some 100 staffers including doctors and female medical officers were hired through the PPSC and 50 others after walk-in interviews. A doctor who was inducted after passing the PPSC examination said he had not been paid since his appointment in July.

Asking not to be named, he said many doctors had been transferred to basic health units (BHU) and rural health centres (RHC) in far-off areas of the district.

He said it seemed that the Punjab government inducted more doctors than the existing number of positions and has been unable to pay them.

A senior doctor in the Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC) administration said the doctors hired through PPSC have been facing salary issues and the provincial government has already allocated the budget for ad hoc doctors’ salaries till December 2012.

He feared that even after December, the government might not pay the ad hoc doctors and their contracts might not be renewed.

The senior doctor added that new inductees transferred to far-off areas had been asked to submit their last pay certificates with their transfer orders, which was impossible as they had never been paid.

Dr Musadaq Khan, RMC principal and head of its three allied hospitals, said the issue of non-payment of salaries was confined only to public service doctors.

The principal insisted that there are just 10 to 15 doctors who have not been paid, reasoning that their services had been handed over to the Executive District Officer (EDO) Health managing the BHUs and RHCs. He said that salaries would be disbursed among the unpaid doctors after some administrative issues are resolved.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2012.