At least 200 Pims staffers without salaries for months.

ISLAMABAD -- Over 200 employees of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), who were appointed under the defunct Medical Teaching Institution (MTI) Act, have not received their salaries since the start of this year.

Employees, which include 44 professors, associate professors, assistant professors and casualty medical officers, 168 charge nurses, and six members of the management committee have been working without pay since the act was repealed.

Executive Director (ED) Pims Dr Naeem Malik said that he wanted to pay the salaries to the staff, as the budget was available, but the health ministry stopped the hospital from payments. He added that he was in favour of retaining the employees and efforts were underway to retain them.

Health secretary claims salaries for employees hired under repealed law to be released soon

Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) Special Secretary Mirza Nasiruddin Mashhood said that initially contracts will be given to the employees and then they will be regularised through Federal Public Services Commission (FPSC) exam. However, he said that salaries will be released soon, as there was a provision to appoint employees to remove the difficulties faced by the hospital.

MTI Act and job security

In November 2020, President Dr Arif Alvi promulgated the MTI Ordinance under which the Pims was to be run through a board of governors (BoG). Even though employees protested against the ordinance, it sailed through parliament. Later on, some appointments were made under MTI Act 2021.

After it came to power, the PDM government passed the MTI Repeal Bill and sent it to the president to get his nod but Dr Alvi returned it with a suggestion to reconsider it. So, the government was left with no choice but to pass the bill again in a joint session to make it an act of parliament. The bill was again passed on December 20, 2022, in a joint sitting.

After the legislation repealed the MTI act, the 200 employees, who were appointed in light of the defunct law, got their salaries in December and were allowed to continue working on the condition that they would be reappointed on a contract basis. However, they have not been paid since then.

According to a document, available with Dawn, the Pims executive director asked the NHS secretary that since...