Govt doctors agitate against deputation policy

Young doctors voiced their frustration at the govt’s deputation policy for young doctors and for alleged favouritism.

LAHORE: A group of young doctors has threatened to move the courts or quit their jobs and move abroad in anger at the government’s deputation policy for young doctors and for alleged favouritism.

In September, the Post Graduate Medical Institute (PGMI) selected 400 candidates for specialisation courses starting on October 1, 2010, including 110 doctors in government service. But just one of these 110 doctors, Dr Saima Khan, has been allowed to start classes. The rest have been told by the Health Department that they will not be sent to their respective courses on deputation for two reasons: because that privilege is only allowed to doctors who have been in regular service for at least three years; and because the Punjab government banned the transfer and postings of doctors in April 2009.

These doctors started their regular service on April 27, 2009 and were appointed to various hospitals at the district, tehsil and village level.Speaking to The Express Tribune, the aggrieved doctors questioned how their being sent for higher studies on deputation violated the ban on transfers. “Transfer and deputation are two different situations. We want to be sent on deputation but the health secretary is creating hurdles,” said one doctor.

The doctors said that the Health Department had issued them no-objection certificates (NOC) for the courses in August 2010, but when they asked the health department for deputation letters at the end of September, they were refused.

They complained that the deputation policy was being implemented selectively. Doctors who had been regularised with them on April 27, 2009, had done various diplomas and degree programmes at the PGMI last year, they said. And they asked why Dr Khan had been allowed to start her specialisation course. “They’ve clearly relaxed the deputation policy in her case,” said one doctor. “Why has one person been accommodated and 109 deprived of their rights?”

They showed The Express Tribune a copy of the letter by which Dr Khan, who is a medical officer at Chakwal District Headquarter Hospital, was allowed to start her course. “She approached the health secretary through an influential relative,” alleged one doctor.

They said that some 1,800 government-employed doctors had applied to the PGMI in March and 110 were selected after an arduous six-month process of tests and interviews.

The aggrieved doctors threatened to move the courts to overturn the Punjab government’s deputation policy, failing which they would move abroad for higher studies.

Health Secretary Fawad Hassan Fawad and the PGMI principal refused to comment. Dr Shahid Amin, deputy secretary of medical education in the Health Department, was not available for comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2010.