LAHORE: The Punjab government has notified a four-tier service structure for the paramedics and upgraded all the posts from BPS-5 to 20.
The service structure was the long-standing demand of the allied health professionals who had been protesting for years all over Punjab.
According to the notification "it is for the first time the paramedics will also enjoy senior grades like BPS-19 and 20". The government has also re-designated the posts for paramedics.
The announcement was made at the Punjab Directorate of Health Services by Health Secretary Babar Hayat Tarar, Advisor to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique, Health Director General Dr Zahid Pervez, Mayo Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Amjad Shahzad and other senior officials on Wednesday. The office-bearers of the paramedics’ association also were present.
Mr Tarar said that initially 28,900 paramedics would be beneficiaries of the upgrade of posts from BPS-5 to 16. Furthermore, he said, 1,485 senior paramedics would get senior grades from BPS-17 to 20.
Elaborating on the four-tier service structure, he said the BPS-5 to 8 posts of the paramedics had been upgraded to BPS-9 and BPS-9 to 11 to BPS-12. Similarly, BPS-12 to 13 posts had been upgraded to BPS-14 and BPS-14 to 15 posts had been upgraded to BPS-16.
According to the re-designated posts under the service structure the paramedics working in the BPS-5 to 9 scales would be called junior technicians and paramedics working in BPS-10 to 14 technicians. Those of BPS-15 and 16 would work as chief technicians.
The health secretary further said the paramedics in senior grades would get promotions according to the service rules. They would have to appear for short courses to streamline their promotion matters, he said.
The BPS-17 official (paramedic) would be called technologist, BPS-18 senior technologist, BPS-19 additional principal technologist and the official (paramedic) working in BPS-20 would be titled principal technologist.
More than 1,485 officials would benefit from this initiative in the senior grades, Mr Babar said, adding that 223 of them would be available in the BPS-19 and 15 positions in BPS-20.
He said as Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had announced the four-tier service structure in November 2011, the notification had been implemented with retrospective effect.
“Now the paramedics promoted according to the service structure will also get financial arrears from the aforementioned date,” he said.
A group of paramedics (Rahmat Sindhu group) got annoyed when the health department officials made no announcement for the class IV employees (working in BPS-I to 4).
Rahmat Sindhu told the health secretary that the class IV paramedics were double in number compared to those who got the service structure.
“It was shocking to learn that the health department did not bring more than 60,000 Class IV paramedics under the new service structure,” he lamented and left the venue as a protest when the health secretary told them that they would get the service structure in the next phase.