Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani Approved Summary of New Career Path for Health Professionals, with Young Doctors Joining the Government Service.

Pharmaceutical Review (www.pharmareview.wordpress.com). Staff Reporter; Dawn News 12 April, 2011. The capital’s young doctors working in public hospitals will get significantly higher salaries and a new service structure from July 1 this year, two demands for which they went on strike last month. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Monday approved a summary on a new career path for health professionals, with young doctors joining the government service in grade 9 – equivalent to BPS-18 – with minimum salary package of Rs75,000 per month.

Nargis Sethi, secretary health, told Dawn that “the professional career structure for doctors will now have grades 1-13”. Young doctors will be inducted in grade 9 and get around Rs75,000 per month. Doctors currently join the federal government hospitals in BPS-17 with a starting salary of around Rs25,000 to Rs30,000 per month. For almost a month, Young Doctors Association’s strike brought the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and Polyclinic to a standstill. Demanding bet ter service structure and higher salaries, young doctors’ strike in March created immense difficulties for patients. Under the new package, paramedics, nurses, and pharmacists have been placed in grades 1-7. Similarly senior doctors in grade 13 – equivalent to BPS22 – would get around Rs200,000 or more per month.

Ms Sethi said Prime Minister Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari had discussed the young doctors’ demands and concerns. “PM Gilani has approved the health ministry’s summary.” She said under the summary approved by the prime minister, the doctors and other health professionals would have a separate service structure. “The decision will come into effect from July 1.” But she also added that the financial impact of the decision was being discussed by the finance, establishment, and health secretaries. The secretary added that with the approval of the summary, around 100 or more doctors would be inducted at the federal level. “Now doctors will get promotion on merit and the best of them will serve in grade 13, which is equivalent to BPS-22.” She said the Pay and Pension Commission of the federal government had endorsed the government’s decision for streamlining the “highly regarded profession of doctors”.

A senior Pims doctor, requesting anonymity, termed the government move a landmark decision for medical profession. He asked the provincial governments to follow the federal initiative to resolve the concerns of doctors. YDA members at PIMS and Polyclinic also lauded the government decision. “With contractual doctors getting regular jobs and several of our senior doctors moving to a next grade is a great move” said Dr Owais Nizami, a key member of YDA. The prime minister on Monday told the National Assembly that the ‘medical practitioners’ working on contract will be regularized.