Sindh starts disbursement of health allowance to frontline medical workers

KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to disburse health allowance to the frontline health workers and announced to continue the provision of allowance till complete elimination of coronavirus pandemic, ARY News reported on Friday.

The Sindh Finance Department issued an order to disburse health allowance to doctors and paramedical staff. According to the order, the health allowance will be given from July 1 which will be continued till elimination of the virus.

The frontline health workers of Grade 17 and above will be paid Rs35,000 each month, whereas, Rs17,000 will be given to doctors and paramedics from Grade 1 to 16.

Read: Govt raises non-practicing allowance for doctors

Rs15,000 will be given to postgraduate students, Rs10,000 to house-job officers and Rs5,000 to nursing students who are working in medical facilities treating COVID-19 patients.

Earlier in October last year, the provincial government had decided to restore COVID-19 special allowance to medical staff.

Protests by the medical staff of Sindh public hospitals had come to fruition as Sindh government yielded to their demand of continuing COVID-19 allowance.

The staff had staged protests after the public hospitals under provincial health department discontinued the COVID-19 allowance that was originally designed to compensate the medical personnel for their work in the medical emergency situation following the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

Read: Health ministry decides repossessing risk allowances to undeserving staff

After the Sindh Health Department suspended the remuneration for the staff, it resulted in incessant protests by the employees of these hospitals to which the government finally surrendered to their demands.

The health department had written to the finance department to restore medical staff COVID-19 compensation funds. It had stated that the novel coronavirus has not been eradicated from the land and the number of infection cases has only jacked up recently.

The letter from the health department further had directed the finance department to restore and continue the COVID-19 funds for the medical staff until the pandemic has wiped off from Sindh.