Young Doctors Association Balochistan announced that they would go on a strike from Monday after the deadline for their demands passed without affect. “The government did not accept our demands for increment in salaries and our deadline in this regard has ended,” the young doctors told reporters who visited government hospitals in Quetta on Sunday.
They said they would withdraw their services from Monday. “Young doctors will not work in the evening and night shifts at government hospitals from Monday,” they said. They regretted that a young doctor at government hospitals in Balochistan was being paid only Rs 12,000 per month, an amount insufficient even to meet kitchen expenditure in this time and age.
Meanwhile, patients at Civil Hospital, Quetta appealed to the government to increase young doctors’ salaries in line with the federal and Punjab government. They said the prolonged strike by doctors had resulted in a lot of sufferings. “Rigidity on their stance, both by provincial government and young doctors, has disappointed us. They are not taking poor patients under consideration,” an elderly heart-patient Sahib Jan told reporters.