Rawalpindi:The Young Doctors Association (YDA), Punjab Chapter, is willing to accept the package offered by the provincial government recently, but not without raise in salaries of medical officers (Mos).

The Punjab government offered a package to young doctors based on proposals by a special committee constituted by Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif to resolve the issue. The government accepted the demands regarding pay protection, medical entitlement to young doctors and their families and security for them in healthcare facilities.

The government has offered a raise of Rs6,000 in salary to house officers and Rs20,000 to postgraduate trainees, while all existing grades would be upgraded meaning a doctor serving in grade 17 would be promoted to grade 18 while doctors in grade 18 would be promoted to grade 19 and so on, said YDA Punjab Chairman Dr. Muhammad Haroon while talking to ‘The News’ on Monday.

He said that according to the package offered by the provincial government, the existing grade (BPS-17) of medical officers would be upgraded to BPS-18, however, no pay raise would be given to them. “The YDA has demanded of the Punjab government that a pay raise of Rs20,000 should be given to medical officers.”

A total of 17,900 doctors, including teaching staff and excluding administrative staff, are serving under the Punjab government of which 12,800 are medical officers. “If the government does not increase salary of medical officers, the package offered by it would not be acceptable to the YDA Punjab,” said Dr. Haroon.

To a query, he said that the YDA representatives talked to the Punjab health secretary on Saturday and informed him about the YDA’s reservations on the package offered. “Yesterday, the YDA talked to members of the chief minister’s committee too and asked them to recommend a pay raise of Rs20,000 for medical officers.”

On the call of YDA Punjab, young doctors observed strike in outpatient departments of all public sector hospitals of the province for 38 days till April 7 when the Punjab chief minister intervened into the matter and constituted a six-member special committee asking it to prepare a summary of the demands. Last week, the YDA had announced that young doctors would go on strike again in outpatient and inpatient departments of all public sector hospitals from May 11 if the Punjab government fails to meet their demands.

When asked, Dr. Haroon said that the call of strike from Wednesday (tomorrow) is still intact and the YDA is waiting for the Punjab government’s response on the subject of pay raise demanded for medical officers.The news