Favoritism Exposed: Health Ministry Shakes Up NIH Recruitment
By: Omed Hajjana
Islamabad: Federal health ministry has reportedly decided to ‘reorganize’ the written tests for the recruitment of over 178 experts and support staff for a crucial surveillance project at the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad that may raise serious questions.
The government officials claim that many of the ‘favorite’ candidates could not pass the screening tests and therefore, the written tests were being reorganized.
“The federal health ministry has approached the Health Services Academy (HSA) asking to retake the test for recruitment of around 178 people for the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSRS).
Sources said that move was taken after many of their favorite candidates could not pass the exams.
They claimed that NIH asked irrelevant questions in the screening tests, due to which some ‘competent candidates’ could not clear the exams. Retake of a test is a violation of relevant rules and regulations”, a source in the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHS, R&C) told The NewzTodays.
The project “Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response System (IDSRS) with Public Health Laboratory Network (PHLN) and Workforce Development for Transition of FELTP” amounts to Rs. 4.5 billion spanning over three years duration.
The project was announced in 2021 but despite the passage of two years, recruitment of officials has not been completed as ‘influential people’ in the government wish to fill the posts with their ‘favorites’, they claimed.
Around 4500 candidates from entire Pakistan including microbiologists, epidemiologists, human resource experts, doctors, environmentalists, communication experts, and others appeared in the screening tests and a few hundred of them cleared but they were never called for the interviews despite three and half months, they further informed, adding that now the ministry officials wanted to retake the screening tests to facilitate their ‘favorite candidates’.
Sources further said that health ministry officials have been influencing for the last couple of weeks to reorganize the screening tests.
But this time they don’t want NIH Islamabad to conduct the tests.
They have asked the Health Services Academy (HSA) to start preparations because they want the process of recruitment to be completed before the end of the present government’s tenure”, an official in the Ministry of Health on the condition of anonymity claimed.HSA organize a Moot on Healthcare Financing in Pakistan
Officials at the Health Services Academy (HSA) Islamabad confirmed that they had been approached by the health ministry officials to ‘conduct the screening tests’ for the IDSRS project at NIH but added that they were waiting for the details of the posts to conduct the screening tests.
They also linked the transfer of Special Secretary Health Mirza Nasiruddin Mashood Ahmed from the ministry, further claiming that Mirza Mashood is a big hurdle in the recruitment on merit, due to which he was transferred from the Ministry of Health.
On the other hand, employees in the PIMS and Polyclinic also claimed that jobs in the hospitals and other institutions under the administrative control of the health ministry influenced appointments.
Such influence was going to destroy the national institutions.
“A gang in the health ministry is openly selling posts at PIMS, Poly Clinic, NICH, and other federal institutions but this is not acceptable to the employees of these institutions. Those paying money for the jobs to the Mafia in the ministry would destroy these institutions and jeopardize the lives of people, which is not acceptable for us”, Waseem Gujjar, General Secretary of the non-medical employees’ union said while addressing a protest demonstration at the hospital.
