The Punjab Young Doctors Association (YDA) agreed to call off the strike in city hospitals on Monday ‘conditionally’ after carrying out successful negotiations with the Punjab government, Pakistan Today has learnt. In a late night Sunday meeting with Health Secretary Captain (r) Arif Nadeem, Senator Pervaiz Rasheed and Dr Saeed Elahi, a six-member team of young doctors agreed to call off the strike announced in reaction to the Punjab government’s decision to suspend senior doctors from administrative posts at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology. Even other doctors’ associations had announced support for the call and had condemned the act of holding senior doctors responsible.
Per details, the young doctors put up a certain set of demands to the Punjab government and ‘reluctantly’ laid off the plan to hold a strike when the demands were accepted. The government had however agreed to reinstate all ‘innocent’ doctors and administrators until Friday morning at most when the results from the drug testing laboratories would also arrive. Meanwhile, the government will not post any new MS or CEO at the PIC, while the removed CEO Professor Dr Azhar will continue working as a professor. The government also assured the doctors that no new arrests will be made until the lab results were revealed and only those who were found guilty would be punished.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Punjab YDA Spokesperson Dr Nasir said young doctors took the decision because the government had punished the doctors without any ‘scientific’ evidence or the lab test reports. He said initially the doctors were reluctant to call the strike off and to wait for three days, but after the government’s assurance and considering the effect of the strike on patients, the YDA team decided to take the strike call back.
Meanwhile, the provincial body of the Medical Teachers Association also met and lauded the resolution of dispute between young doctors and the government. Professor Dr Javaid Akram said the government had agreed to reinstate all doctors on administrative posts and hence the strike had been called off.
‘Pay attention to patients from far-flung areas’: Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Lahore High Court on Monday observed that the patients of far-flung areas will not be left neglected and the court will definitely ensure that they are provided with healthcare amid the fiasco of spurious medicines. Bandial was addressing the Punjab Health additional secretary who had appeared before during the hearing of a petition asking the court to form a judicial commission to hold an enquiry into deaths of over 100 patients at PIC by reaction of spurious medicines. The petition was filed by Judicial Activism Penal, a public interest litigation firm, through Muhammad Azhar Siddique.
The judge asked the secretary what steps had been taken so far about spurious medicines issue? The secretary said sub-standard medicines supplied to PIC had been withdrawn and the patients had been sent home after medical check up. To a question related to the treatment of patients in the far-flung areas, the secretary said medical teams ahd been dispatched to inform people. Maj (r) Mubassarullah, head of CM’s inquiry commission on the medicine matter, told the court that FIA and Punjab government were conducting joint probe into the matter and those responsible would be held accountable under the law.
