Doctors unpaid for five months

MULTAN: More than 100 doctors have been waiting for their salaries and arrears for the last five months here, it is learnt.

Talking to The News here on Saturday, the doctors said that they were facing financial problems due to non-release of the salaries at the Multan Nishtar Health University and the hospital and the Nishtar Institute of Dentistry.They lamented that they were unpaid in Naya Pakistan despite doing their jobs. They said that the Punjab government should revisit her policies making them relief oriented instead relief snatching policies.

A senior consultant said that the public hospitals administration was helpless after dispatching repeated reminders to the Punjab Specialised Healthcare and the department’s secretary. He said that the situation was going to worst and worst and they were unable to meet their utilities and other expenses. Pakistan Medical Association president Prof Dr Masoodur Rauf told that the PMA had made a number of attempts and sent reminders for the release of the doctors’ salaries but the government was not addressing the problem amicably.

The Nishtar Hospital administration had sent a number of reminders to the Punjab Health secretary but to no avail, he said. He said that the Punjab Health Ministry had expressed helplessness over lacking of budget to release doctors’ salaries and reimbursement of arrears.

H told that at least 106 doctors of the Nishtar Hospital and the Nishtar Institute of Dentistry were unpaid for the last five months. Senior consultants and doctors were passing through a critical mental agony and their economic conditions were declining day by day, he said.

He said that 46 postgraduate doctors at the Nishtar Hospital were working without monthly salaries while 31 PGRs were waiting reimbursement of arrears for the last five months.