ISLAMABAD/LAHORE – The federal government engaged the Young Doctors Association (YDA) on Tuesday, agreeing to accept their demands in a political move to exploit the situation in Punjab where doctors and provincial authorities have been at loggerheads for over a month now.
The strike announced by the Punjab chapter of the YDA swelled in ranks as senior doctors from Punjab and other provinces also expressed solidarity with them, while the young doctors ended their strike in Islamabad and Multan on assurance from the government that their demands would be met.
As a result of the assurance given by Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi – who also holds the charge of federal health secretary – that their demands would be fulfilled within a week, the YDA conditionally called off its strike with a warning that they would go on strike again if their demands were not met as agreed.
Meanwhile, Medical Teachers Association (MTA) General Secretary Dr Muhammad Amjad told a press conference at Lahore Services Hospital that young doctors had called off their strike in Punjab Institute of Cardiology on a special request from the MTA, which was a big achievement and now the “ball is in the government’s court”.
He said if the Punjab government wanted a stable atmosphere in public hospitals, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif should meet with young doctors to resolve the issue. He also demanded that the government should take back the termination notices issued to doctors to resolve the issue amicably, adding that it was dangerous to appoint fresh graduates – who had no experience of running medical facilities – to run hospital emergency rooms.
“If the government is facing a financial crunch, it should announce a salary raise for only the young doctors and not for professors,” he added. YDA Punjab President Dr Hamid Butt said the Health Department had failed to reinstate emergency services in public hospitals properly through “PCO doctors”. “The government has cheated us six times, but now we want a reasonable solution to the issue,” he said.
Doctors from Karachi, Quetta and Azad Kashmir also expressed solidarity with their colleagues in Punjab. Taking the lead from doctors in Quetta, doctors from Azad Kashmir also held a press conference on Tuesday demanding a pay raise and threatened to go on strike if their demands were not met.
Sethi had told a press conference at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) after talks with YDA representatives that the Finance Ministry had also assured the Health Ministry of its support to resolve the issue. She said the salaries would be increased in the next financial year, adding that the government had acted on special directives from the president and prime minister.
YDA Islamabad President Dr Sajid Hussain said that he was calling off the strike for one week. “I think one week is enough time to resolve any issue if someone honestly wants to do that,” he said. He said that PIMS, Polyclinic and National Institute of Rehabilitative Medicine (NIRM) in Islamabad and other hospitals in the rest of the country were with them.
“We are ending our protest only on [the government’s] assurance as we don’t want patients to suffer,” he said. He said that after the acceptance of all demands, the young doctors would also be directly appointed to BPS Scale 18. On the other hand, the YDA strike is still on in Rawalpindi and on Tuesday almost 300 doctors staged a sit-in and senior doctors also joined them in protest.
They were chanting anti-government slogans and holding various placards inscribed with slogans such as “save doctors, save humanity”. YDA Joint Secretary Dr Junaid Abbasi told Pakistan Today that the YDA appreciated and welcomed the positive step of the federal government to address the doctors’ problems in the capital. Doctors agreed to resume work at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) emergency departments in Lahore and Multan hospitals immediately, however, on instructions from senior professors.
YDA Punjab President Hamid Butt said though that doctors would not resume work in the wards and outpatient departments until the Punjab health secretary was sacked and a new secretary from within the Health Department was appointed.
