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YDA seeks PM’s intervention to resolve pending salary issue

By Our Correspondent
September 25, 2020

Islamabad : The Young Doctors Association (YDA), Islamabad, has drawn the Prime Minister’s attention to the prolonged agony of doctors working in federal hospitals at 40 per cent less wages as compared to their counterparts in any other province of Pakistan.

In a letter addressed to the PM, the YDA has referred to the doctors’ two-year struggle for legitimization of their legal demand for salary raise through proper channels. “We were repeatedly assured that this issue has been taken up by the higher officials and is on its way to the last attainment,” the letter states, emphasizing that despite verbal announcements and written approvals, doctors are standing at a disgruntled zero position for over a year now.

Last year in August, then PM’s Special Assistant on Health Dr. Zafar Mirza had announced an increase in the salaries of federal doctors. The letter states, “He further stated that Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are in the process of being finalized, and that within a matter of days, federal employees would receive a substantial increase in pay.” It is pertinent to mention that the ECC approved Rs784 million on January 14, 2020 as a budget for federal healthcare employees.

YDA has complained that every time, a new issue gets added to the list to tactfully delay the process. It has questioned the delay in approval of KPIs. “The doctors community, which stood in the forefront of PTI’s election campaign, is now losing hope and developing discontent about PTI,” the letter states, urging the PM to settle this matter with a true intent to protect the rights of federal doctors, rather than handing over the matter to people who are deferring it with a pile of malicious intended promises.