Providing relief: Yousafzai says all vacancies at health unit will be filled in one year

Health minister says government will regularise services of 500 new doctors soon.

ABBOTABAD: Health Minister Shaukat Yousafzai said the government has gathered data of vacant posts at all basic health units and rural health centres in the province, adding all seats will be filled by next year.   

Speaking to journalists at the two-day seminar on Urogynecology held at the Frontier Medical College on Friday, Yousafzai said the previous governments “played politics in the name of democracy” but never paid attention towards the key sectors of education and health due to which both sectors remained neglected.



The health minister said ill planning by previous governments can be judged from the number of vacancies at health units although many doctors in the province are jobless. “We have enough resources but they were never utilised,” he said, adding the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government is committed to bringing changes in the health sector.

Yousafzai added apart from improving major public hospitals, the provincial government is also directing its resources towards providing better health facilities to residents of rural areas, who usually remain ignored.

The government has hired 500 contract doctors in the rural areas who will be given permanent jobs soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2013.