Health dept reaches out to CPSP head to tackle medics on strike.

Byline: Asif Chaudhry

LAHORE -- While holding the postgraduate residents enrolled with the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) mainly responsible for the ongoing strike in hospitals across the province, the health department has sought help of the CPSP president to tackle the medics.

The department is of the view that the Punjab government is paying a stipend of Rs9,800 million to the three categories of employees annually and despite this huge financial support they create 'law and order situation' in the public sector hospitals.

Of the total allocation, a major chunk (Rs6,551 million) is going to the 6,600 PGRs, Rs1,747 million to 3,200 house officers and 1,501 million to 6,225 nurses.

A PGR gets monthly stipend of Rs82,700, a house officer Rs45,500 and a nurse student Rs20,100, the department said.

It held brainstorming sessions in many recent meetings convened in connection with the protest against the Medical Teaching Institutions (MTI) Ordinance and concluded that the CPSP should be engaged to neutralise the PGs.

The health department wrote a letter to CPSP President Prof Zafarullah Chaudhry on Friday and asked him to attend the meeting scheduled to be held on Oct 23. A final decision would be taken during the meeting.

In a related development, the health department has constituted a three-member committee of senior medics having close association with the CPSP to hold dialogue with the representatives of the striking doctors, nurses and paramedics.

Services Institute of Medical Sciences Lahore (Services Hospital) Principal Prof Mahmood Ayyaz has been made convener of the committee while King Edward Medical University Vice Chancellor Prof Khalid Masood Gondal and Fatima Jinnah Medical University VC Prof Aamer Zaman Khan are its members.

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