Service structure: Nurses split over 3-year contract offer

‘Ad hoc nurses can’t be given regular jobs and have been awarded contracts’.

LAHORE: The protesting nurses split into two groups on Sunday after the government offered them three-year contract.

Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique distributed three-year contract letters among the nurses who accepted the government’s offer at Lahore General Hospital.

“The government has offered the contract to 2,800 ad hoc nurses. Every nurse will have a job,” he said.

Meanwhile, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said the chief minister had sought a “midway agreement” to end the protest.

He said according to service rules, ad hoc nurses could not be given regular jobs right away. Therefore, he said, they were awarded contracts.

He said nurses working on contract will not be required to appear before the Public Service Commission. He said their services would be regularised on completion of the tenure of the contract.

He said for promotion of regular nurses in grade-17, 1,500 posts would be created.

He said there would be no reduction in their allowances in case of illness or pregnancy leaves. A group of ad hoc nurses, however, refused to accept the government’s offer and continued their protest demonstration on The Mall outside the Punjab assembly building on Sunday. They demanded regular appointments without the working an additional three years on contract.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2014.