Daily Times

LAHORE: At a time when Punjab is facing worst shortage of trained human resource and health infrastructure, the government seems more concerned about expanding the ‘network of admin officials’ on high salaries instead of ensuring healthcare to patients.

As many as 21 officers would be recruited in the project management unit (PMU) of Primary and Secondary Healthcare (P&SHC) Department. The government would spend Rs 3.8 million per month on their salaries, which means that it would be spending Rs 45.6 million annually in addition to perks and privileges.

A well-informed source privy this development told Daily Times that after bifurcation of the health department and appointment of more top-ranking officials in senior management, the government in the first phase appointed 17 new positions of ‘support managers’ to monitor the district headquarter hospitals (DHQs). He claimed that each support manager was entitled to a minimum salary of Rs 130, 000 per month in addition to perks and privileges.

He lamented that 21 DHQ hospitals in Punjab lacked the facility of CT scan machine due to paucity of funds, while government invited applications from private firms to install these machines. He said that as many as 959 posts of specialist doctors were lying vacant and despite slight improvement in health facilities, at least 284 basic health units (BHU) in 13 districts of Punjab were operating without doctors.

He disclosed that the P&SHC Department also initiated a process to establish a new unit named ‘Directorate General Monitoring and Evaluation’. A staggering sum of Rs 333.586 million was estimated for the project’s operational cost, raising question marks on this ‘intellectual initiative’, he added. “Process was initiated despite the fact that executive district officers (health) and district officers were already carrying out these assignments,” he informed.

It was further revealed that 126 employees would be recruited in DGM&E while a major chunk of Rs 216.504 out of the total Rs 333.586 million would be spent on their salaries. Moreover, he added, Rs 38.200 million would be spent on procurement of equipment, furniture and vehicles, besides project allowance of Rs 55.94 million and Rs 2 million for database integration.

P&SHC invited applications from qualified persons with good service record. According to official documents, there would be one post for deputy programme director for PMU and Rs 3, 50,000 per month would be paid to him/her. Similarly, two posts of operations director against which Rs 2,50,000 would be given, one procurement specialist, one finance director, administration director, ICT director, planning director and patient transfer service director would be hired at a monthly salary of Rs 2,50,000 each.

Likewise, there would be one post each for project managers including civil, biomedical, architecture, planning, dental, psychotherapy, legal expert and automation specialist against which they would Rs 1, 50,000 per month. There would be one post of procurement officer, admin and accounts officer, and audit officer against which they draw Rs 1, 00,000 per month.