LAHORE, June 19: In a late night development on Tuesday the Punjab government held negotiations with the representatives of three organisations representing medical professionals and formed a three-member sub-committee to finalise the estimated financial impact of the proposed service structure for all cadres of doctors, it is learnt.

Young Doctors’ Association (YDA) with the backing of Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) and Medical Teachers’ Association (MTA) is on a strike, demanding service structure.

Headed by Deputy Secretary (budget) Sarfraz Ahmad, the committee was formed in a meeting headed by special assistant to chief minister on health Khwaja Salman Rafique at the Civil Secretariat.

The other members of the committee are: YDA (Punjab) office-bearer Dr Mudassar Razaq Khan, PMA secretary general Dr Izhar Chaudhry and a representative of the MTA.

Health Secretary Arif Nadeem, Additional Secretary Asfandyar Khan, PMA president Dr Tanveer Anwar, Dr Izhar Ahamd, YDA representatives Dr Abubkr Gondal, Amir Bandesha and Dr Ajmal Khan were also present in the meeting.

An insider said during the dialogue with medics, health department officials expressed their strong reservations over the demands of the medical organisations.

Sharing estimated budget calculations with the meeting participants, Mr Sarfraz said the Health Professional Allowance (HPA) demanded by the striking doctors had financial impact of Rs5.8 billion, Non Practicing Allowance (NPA) Rs18 billion and one-grade upgradation required Rs950 million. He said the representatives of the medical organisations had demanded HPA equivalent to their running basic pay and NPA twice the basic salary.

Further quoting the proposed budgetary calculations presented by the medical organisations, Dr Sarfraz informed the meeting that they (doctors) had demanded that salary of a post graduate trainee (PG) should be equal to the initial take-home salary of a medical officer (MO).

Similarly, they were demanding that salary of a House Officer (HO) should be half of the take-home salary of an MO.

Mr Sarfraz said the financial impact of pay raise in this category was estimated at Rs760 million.

He informed the doctors’ delegation that the government was in no position to spend hefty amounts on these measures because of the prevailing financial crisis, the insider said.

However, after exchange of various arguments both sides agreed that the sub-committee would meet on Wednesday (today) at the committee room of the health department to finalise the estimated budget for the service structure. “We have informed the health department that the doctors are ready to get all the financial incentives under the proposed service structure in phases in the next five years”, Dr Mudasar told Dawn.

He said though the government representatives had shown a keen interest in resolving the service structure issue in the meeting, the young doctors would continue their strike till the acceptance of their demands.