Young Doctors Association (YDA) urges govt to ensure paid house job for medical graduates

LAHORE: The Young Doctors Association (YDA) has said that 250 house officers were being forced to work without pay in hospitals across Punjab due to “inefficiency” of the Finance Department.

In a statement on Wednesday, the YDA said that case of increasing house job seats at all the hospitals of Punjab was lying in the Finance Department for the past couple of months. “The incompetent officials of the Finance Department have not yet cleared the case and forwarded it to the Chief Minister’s Secretariat for final approval,” said the statement.

The YDA said that according to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), the Punjab government was bound to provide 100 percent paid house jobs to all medical graduates, adding, “Since the government has increased 950 seats in medical colleges, it also needs to increase the same number of seats in the government hospitals so that the issue of unpaid jobs could be resolved and the doctors are not forced to protest.”

YDA office-bearers, including Dr Rana Sohail, Dr Salman Kazmi, Dr Talha Sherwani, Dr Ghulam Qasim, Dr Murtaza Bloch, Dr Muhammad Khawar Khan, Dr Shahid Dreshik, Dr Waqas Gondal, Dr Shehzad, Dr Asim, Dr Shams, Dr Muhammad Azhar and Dr Muhammad Amjad appealed to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to give directions to Finance Secretary Tariq Bajwa to resolve the matter so that the graduates concerned could get their salaries.