President Asif Ali Zardari signed on Wednesday the Career Structure for Health Personnel (CSHP) Ordinance, providing legal sanction to a new career structure and incentive plan for doctors. The structure includes a salary increase of post-graduate doctors doing house jobs from Rs 18,000 to Rs 50,000 a month.
According to this ordinance, monetary benefits including salary, pension, perks and privileges for all health workers would not be less than what they had been receiving before implementation of this new structure. The current Basic Pay Scale system (BPS 1 to 22), applicable to health workers with the special Health Personnel Pay scale (HPS 1 to 13), would now be applicable to all categories of medical practitioners including paramedics and support services personnel, serving in federal health institutions and other related organisations working under the federal government.
This career structure also includes health allowances starting from a monthly Rs 2,000 to Rs 45,000. It also links the career growth of health professionals with their progress in terms of their skills, education, experience and performance according to rules laid by relevant regulatory bodies. The ordinance also provides guidelines to form further rules as all orders and instructions with respect to any terms and conditions of service or other matters related to health workers, consistent with the provision of this ordinance, would be deemed rules.
Spokesperson to the President Farhatullah Babar told reporters that this ordinance had addressed the longstanding demand of medical practitioners and had also kept them public servants under section 21 of the Pakistan Penal Code of 1860, adding that it had been prepared after consulting all stakeholders and forming a consensus among the medical community. He said doctors working under the federal government were applicable to this new structure but provinces could also follow this model as the Health Ministry had been devolved to provinces after the 18th Amendment.
The provinces had been shown the way and it was now their job to decide the structures and systems in health services, he said. Babar said that this ordinance would immediately come into force and shall deem to have taken effect from July 01, 2011. The spokesperson said entering this structure would be optional for existing employees but all fresh appointments would be made under the new ordinance.
Salary jump for doctors from Rs 18,000 to Rs 50,000
