Daily Times

Dealing with job loss can be a wrenching experience. Unfortunately, the contractual employees of Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) have been going through the same crucial moments these days.

They have known for months, but they cling onto the hope that it won’t happen to them in ‘Naya Pakistan’. Sources said it has been decided in a meeting of the university syndicate’s that contractual doctors and lecturers – mostly females – who have been working for more than six years will be replaced by trainees and favourites.

In a statement, the affected staff members said that these illegal appointment or promotions were being made under the supervision of the DUHS chairman, the Ishratul Ebad Khan Dental College principal, and the ex-dean of DUHS dental section, Prof Dr Anwaar Ali, who was assigned extra responsibilities of making appointments, promotions and conducting tests by the vice chairman (VC). The VC was out of the country during the publication of the advertisement, conducting of tests and calling candidates for interviews, they added.

A doctor told this scribe that in the absence of the VC, tests were conducted by the assigned chairman on July 7, 2019, and two days later, phone calls were made to inform their favourites regarding interviews, while the seniors were searching for their results on the university’s web portal. A doctor said on the condition of anonymity, “We rushed to the acting VC Dr Zarnaz’s office in panic and demanded the list of successful candidates, but she refused to share it.”

“She spoke acrimoniously on our reservations, so we returned, frustrated. After a while we came to know that a fake list of shortlisted candidates was displayed on the website, as none of the seniors’ names was in the list.”

They further said that the present dean was side-lined, as he had left for Germany, while conductions were made in his absence. Earlier, the staff members contacted Sindh’s senior minister Saeed Ghani and also approached the Governor’s House, but remained unsuccessful in getting their grievances addressed. As per the university’s regulations, no trainee of DUHS could be given job, but the shortlisted candidates’ list consisted of many trainees of the university, they added. They further said that illegal appointments had also been made in the university in the past as well.

Reliable sources from within the university confirmed that illegal appointments had been made in the past. Furthermore, following the Supreme Court orders in February 2017, the acting vice chancellor of DUHS, Prof Khawer Saeed Jamali, had sent about sixty workers away who had been working on a contractual basis after their retirement. In May 2017, Prof Muhammad Saeed Qureshi had become the new vice chancellor of DUHS. During his tenure in 2018, it was revealed that new appointments of retired persons were made on important positions on lucrative salaries, in sheer violation of the Supreme Court orders. In this regard, first example is Prof Zarnaz, who was appointed as the principal with an additional charge of pro-vice chancellor. The second one is Dr Rustam Zaman, a retired person from Civil Hospital Karachi, having just MBBS degree, who was made the assistant medical superintendent (AMS) in Dow University of Health Sciences on heavy salary with other fringe benefits like conveyance and fuel. According to Dow’s staff, Dr Rustam Zaman was notorious for using indecent words with the lower staff and patients and he, unnecessarily, used to intervene in other departments. He also was allegedly accused of appointing his relatives and facilitating them in different OPDs free of cost. A ghost employee of DUHS, Madam Shahidatheo, was another example of illegal appointments, who had been dismissed on the charges of facilitating her relatives and favourites by unfair means, but just after a short period of one month, she was against engaged on a contractual basis.

Under such circumstances, doctors said they were willing to stand against the corrupt system and waiting to see whether the SC would revisit this curious issue. The Young Doctors Association (YDA) has also shown solidarity with them the affected staff members. Doctors argue that they were being dismissed unfairly.