LARKANA: More than 50 doctors, who joined the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SMBBMU) as its faculty members in April 2008, face an uncertain future as the university has since failed to formulate for them a service structure, thus depriving them of promotions and pension after retirement.

They had joined the fledgling medical university when it direly needed their services to meet shortage of faculty but in return they had received a constant worry about their future, said Dr Abdul Waheed Surhiyo, senior lecturer, while talking to Dawn here on Saturday.

He said quoting sources in the university that Prof Dr Sikandar Mughal, the first registrar of the university, had written a letter to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) on April 11, 2012, with a detailed list of faculty members and recommendation for their upgrade but it appeared to have failed to elicit an encouraging response from the commission.

The university’s syndicate, too, had formed a committee to frame service structure and promotions of lecturers and teaching faculty in its 13th and 36th meetings but it made no further headway, he said.

Faculty members deprived of promotions, pension

Surprisingly, even after nine years of the university’s establishment they were still unsure about their promotions while the committee headed by registrar Prof Dr Afsar Bhutto had not even bothered to hold a meeting to discuss the service structure’s rules and regulations, said Dr Surhiyo.

Dr Abdul Rasheed Shaikh, convener of doctors committee, said the prevailing state of affairs had deepened their worries.

A source in the university said that most doctors were reaching superannuation age while their colleagues who had joined the Sindh government under four-tier formulas had been promoted from grades 18 to 20 and 21 before reaching superannuation.

He said the SMBBMU had in a recent meeting of its syndicate approved a proposal for finalising a code book for the university and formed a committee in this regard but it had not met yet. During the intervening period it was decided to adopt University of Sindh’s code book to run the institution’s affairs, he said.

The doctors said the SMBBMU management did not even follow that code book. Recently Dr Abdul Latif Shaikh and Dr Ahmed Khan Abro retired in grade-19 without being able to get service structure though they were eligible to attain grade-21 at the time of retirement in the light of HEC’s rules, said Dr Shaikh.

Dr Surhiyo said the university management had given them false hopes and at one stage their representative Dr Khalid Rasool Shaikh was assured that the issue of promotions would be resolved soon and advised him not to raise it before Sindh governor during his visit to the university’s main campus.

Dr Shaikh said that they met the vice chancellor and the registrar several times to get their right to promotion but in vain. They had called on Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Ghulam Asghar Channa a week ago to have their problem resolved, he said.

The VC promised to resolve the issue within a week’s time but once again the promise remained unmet. Without a service structure in place, doctors were not eligible to get pensions after retirement, said Dr Shaikh in a memorandum presented to the vice chancellor.

He feared the university authorities had put the issue on the back burner and said they reserved the right to protest and raise voice for their rights.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2017