Sindh secretariat protest: Employees decry health insurance suspension

Protest to continue till demands are met.

KARACHI: Scores of Sindh secretariat employees wearing black arm bands protested against the suspension of their health insurance scheme on Saturday. They called upon the chief minister and the Governor of Sindh to restore their health facility without delay.

Welfare Association’s Dilshad Mahar said that after a long struggle by the employees, the medical facility was provided in 2004 and the government abruptly halted the medical facilities in July this year. “We have learnt that the finance department has sent a summary to the chief minister to shelve the health insurance scheme, which is condemnable,” he said. Bureaucrats can afford the medical expenses of their families, but it is impossible for 5,000 employees to survive without the insurance scheme, he said.

The protest would continue till their demands are met, he said. Talking to The Express Tribune, Muhammad Jahanzeb, the spokesperson for the association, said that as per policy, the health insurance regarding the out-patient department was Rs12,000 for employees working in from BPS 1 to 16, while the limits of BPS 17 to 19 officers was around Rs15,000.

The BPS 20 to 21 officer had an OPD limit of Rs22,000, but in reality, “he had no limit”, according to Jahanzeb.

He said that the government is of the view that the medical allowance for employees has been increased from Rs500 to 1,000, therefore, giving them a health insurance will “burden the feeble shoulders of the government”.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2010.