Staff demands payment for pandemic-related duties

MANSEHRA: The doctors, paramedical staff and volunteers administering the coronavirus vaccine and collecting the samples in the district have been without honorarium and other incentives for the last several months.

“If the health employees and doctors administering the Covid-19 vaccine and performing other relevant duties are not paid dues within a week, we will boycott all sorts of the pandemic-related duties in the district,” Khalid Khan, the president of the paramedical association, told reporters here on Monday.

Flanked by the other officer-bearers of the association, he said the doctors and paramedical staff of as many as 15 mobile teams administering and collecting the samples since February 2021 had been without their salaries and other incentives.

“These teams’ members including 15 doctors and 30 paramedics have been without the honorarium since the start of the sample collecting process was launched in the district on Feb 2021,” Khalid Khan said.

He said as many as 102 daily wages employees hired on Rs1,000 per day and 15 paramedical supervisors hired on Rs2000 per day for administering the Covid-19 vaccine had been going unpaid for the last three consecutive months.