Time is money: Health dept to fill posts in lieu of sluggish commission

Recruitment of grade 18 and 19 doctors to meet shortage of district specialists.

PESHAWAR:

A day after the opposition walked out of the provincial legislature, MPAs from both sides of the aisle set aside their differences and sat down to discuss vacant posts in the health sector.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Health department has decided to fill up vacant posts of grade 18 and 19 doctors at the departmental level due to the lengthy process being undertaken by the K-P Public Service Commission. Minister for Heath Shahram Khan Tarakai informed the house during the question hour that the Public Service Commission’s (PSC) hiring process was too slow, adding they cannot recruit the required number of doctors even in a span of four years at the current pace.

Tarakai said he has asked Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to allow the department to fill up vacant posts of senior doctors at the departmental level to meet the shortage of trained medical practitioners.

Tarakai said the health department has also asked the PSC to issue a no-objection certificate (NOC) to the department to enable it to make the appointments. He added the chief minister has assured him of prompt response in this regard. The health minister also informed MPAs the health department had requisitioned the PSC to appoint 393 district specialists of grade 18 with about 23 of them being radiologists.

JUI-F MPA Uzma Khan, who had raised the question earlier, asked the department to make the appointment on the seats on an ad hoc basis given the low capacity of PSC in hiring.

Concurring with both lawmakers, Speaker Asad Qaiser said PSC’s hiring process was slow and lengthy. He asked the parliamentary leaders to move a joint resolution asking to expedite the process before the house.

In response to a question put forward by JUI-F lawmaker Mufti Fazl Ghafoor, the Home and Tribal Affairs department acknowledged some lawmakers were receiving threats to their lives due to the deteriorating law and order in the province.

Ghafoor urged the law minister to quickly finalise categorisation of prohibited and non-prohibited bore arms as it was obstructing the process of issuing arms licences to lawmakers. Upon this, Law Minister Imtiaz Shahid assured Ghafoor the categorisation would be completed in the current month.

Shahid also informed the house about 67 doctors were issued arms licences for a period of three months by the capital city police officer.

Unsettled business

Opposition lawmakers criticised the government for registering FIRs under the anti-terrorism act against JUI-F workers in Kohat over the November 30 who were protesting against the murder of the party’s Sindh General Secretary Khalid Soomro in Sukkur the same morning.

However, Minister for Public Health Engineering Shah Farman did not pay heed to the opposition’s demands to quash FIRs against JUI-F members, saying the law would take its course.

Proposed legislation

The house unanimously passed the K-P General Provident Investment Fund (amendment) Bill 2014, K-P Services Tribunal (amendment) Bill 2014 and K-P Emergency Rescue Services (amendment) Bill 2014 without any further amendments. The house also unanimously passed a resolution condemning the cracker attacks that targeted DSNGs of private television channels and asked the government to nab the culprits. The session was later adjourned till Monday afternoon.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2014.