Creation of surplus pool of health employees challenged in high court

Petitioner said careers of doctors being brought to disastrous end

PESHAWAR: The provincial government’s decision to place doctors of teaching hospitals in surplus pools in the health department has been challenged in Peshawar High Court.

The high court bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Musarrat Hilali issued notices to the respondents, including the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary, health secretary, health director general, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, and the chief of the health sector reforms unit.



The petition was filed by the president of provincial chapter of Pakistan Medical Association, Dr Hussain Ahmad Haroon. He said in his petition the government was creating a surplus pool in the health department by withdrawing all civil servants from medical institutions. The letter was signed by the chief of health sector reforms unit.

“The government of K-P through a letter on April 23 has asked for […] civil servants working in medical colleges to continue serving in medical colleges and teaching institutions [as] government servants,” read the petition.

He said the total number of employees who will be sent to surplus pool comes to more than 12,000 government servants across the province. Seasoned doctors working in teaching institutions are assets and their career is being brought to a disastrous end, he added.

Haroon requested PHC to declare the creation of surplus pool for professor doctors and other servants of the teaching hospitals across the province illegal without lawful authority.

The provincial government has decided the employees of the four teaching hospitals—Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital in Abbottabad—to either become institutional employees or they would be sent to the surplus pool.

Currently, there are two types of employees working in these hospitals. The ones directly appointed by the government through health department placed in hospitals are called civil servants. The other ones directly appointed by the hospitals are called institutional employees.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2015.