Karachi: In a sweeping decision affecting hundreds of medical professionals, the Sindh Health Department has terminated the services of 289 doctors appointed during the COVID-19 pandemic on an ad-hoc basis, citing the end of their contract period and non-selection through the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC).
The mass termination comes into effect from June 30, 2024, and has sparked concern across the province’s healthcare workforce.
The doctors, including dozens of women medical officers, were hired for 89 days under the “Service Rendered Basis” during the peak of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when hospitals faced unprecedented staff shortages.
Despite playing a crucial role in managing the public health crisis across Sindh, including in Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Sukkur, Khairpur, and Nowshero Feroze, these doctors were never regularised nor given long-term employment assurances.
A formal notification dated June 27, 2025, issued by the Health Department confirmed the end of service for all 289 medical officers, declaring their services “no longer required.”
The list includes those placed under various District Health Officers (DHOs), many of whom had been working on the front lines for over four years despite being initially hired for a three-month period.
The move has ignited backlash from several quarters, with many health professionals and unions calling the decision unjust and demoralising.
Deploring the Sindh government’s decision to terminate 289 frontline doctors, Dr. Farrukh Rauf, Chairman of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) Sindh, said, “We strongly believe that those who served as frontline health workers during the pandemic deserve to be absorbed into the government healthcare system.”
Critics argue that instead of absorbing experienced and trained pandemic-era staff into the overstretched public health system, the government is discarding them without consideration of their contributions or current healthcare needs.
Most of the affected doctors were not recruited through the competitive SPSC process—one of the main grounds cited for their discontinuation. However, observers point out that the government itself bypassed the SPSC during the emergency, and is now using the same criterion to terminate those it once desperately needed.
Doctors working in COVID wards, vaccination centers, and field isolation units had risked their lives at the height of the outbreak when protective gear, ICU beds, and even basic oxygen supply were in short supply.
Several of these doctors reportedly contracted the virus during duty. Some have not yet recovered physically or financially.
Sources in the health department admit that the government lacks the fiscal space to regularize all ad-hoc appointees, and that further rationalization of the workforce may be on the cards.
Affected doctors, meanwhile, say they were not even offered a transition plan or preference for upcoming recruitments.
“If we were good enough to serve during the pandemic, why are we not good enough now?” asked one of the terminated doctors who served in Hyderabad.
As uncertainty looms over their future, the terminated doctors are considering collective legal action, while also appealing to the Chief Minister of Sindh to intervene. For now, the only certainty is that their official duties end on June 30—ironically, just as the country enters peak monsoon season, a time when disease outbreaks strain hospitals to their limits.
PMA has strongly condemned the termination of 289 COVID-era doctors by the Sindh Government, calling it an injustice to frontline heroes. Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Shoro said these doctors risked their lives and now deserve regularization, not removal.
He demanded immediate reinstatement of those who served over five years, warning this move could discourage future public service.
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