Forty seven posts of consultant doctors are lying vacant in Children’s Hospital for the last two years as no doctor is ready to apply for the posts despite advertisements in the local dailies. According to official sources, the vacant posts include three associate professors, 11 assistant professors and 33 senior registrars. When contacted, PMA leader Dr Salman Kazmi and others said that neither senior nor medical officers were ready to do work on meager salary in BPS-17 or 18. He said soon, the government would not have anyone to operate the equipments that were being bought. “I don’t think I would want to work for the government when they are paying you peanuts. Private practice is better,” said Raja Bhatti, a medical student, adding “The government should realise that if the doctors keep preferring private practice, there will be no one to provide the free treatment that they are offering to citizens.”