Arbitration council to address grievances of medics.

Byline: Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR -- The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to establish an arbitration council to ensure resolution of grievances of the health employees and stop court wrangling over appointment, transfer and promotion etc for smooth functioning of the healthcare institutions, according to sources.

They said that government was sick with stay orders obtained by the doctors, nurses, paramedics and other employees of the health department from court as there was no proper litigation cell to pursue such cases efficiently and ensure effective functioning of the hospitals.

'There are more than 1,500 cases filed by the employees against the health department's directives and policies that have worried the government, which wants to address the court's issues at the earliest,' said sources.

Prof Nausherwan Burki, the chairman of Prime Minister Task Force on Health, said that such stay orders were preventing the country from making progress as those hampered the reforms agenda.

'We are working on a law to establish a proper arbitration council to end the issues we are facing due to cases in the courts,' he said.

Prof Burki, the architect of Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told Dawn that legal experts were in the process to specify structure and functioning of the proposed arbitration council on rapid basis.

'We hope it will be in place within a fortnight,' he said. When asked if the arbitration council would have protection by the law, he said: 'Yes, of course.'

The health department's inability to pursue effectively the cases filed by doctors, paramedics, nurses and other employees in courts about their promotions, transfers and postings has been hampering regular postings on top positions in the medical teaching institutions as well as in other hospitals.

The MTIRA 2015, enforced by the PTI government in its first tenure in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to introduce reforms and do away with the 'rotten' health system and improve patients' care, is yet to be fully enforced owing to non-appointments of officers on...