The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab on Tuesday decided to go on with their plan of a sit-in outside the Punjab chief minister’s office today (Wednesday) despite the last minutes negotiations continuing and agreements reached on a vast majority of issues relating to the service structure, Pakistan Today has learnt.
The government and the doctors’ association representatives met on Tuesday trying to finalise the few outstanding issues on the service structure, however the YDA decided to go with their scheduled protest demonstration.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Health Secretary Arif Nadeem said 45 issues out of 52 have been finalized and agreed upon, while only a few are remaining and the government is willing to resolve those too. He said the agreement is very near and soon the people will hear “good news” shortly.
The Health Department officials and the senior politicians have been in dialogue with different associations of doctors on the issue and several meetings have been held, while the Lahore High Court is also hearing the matter. The General Cadre Doctors Association has been demanding a slight change in the formula for promotion saying the formula proposed by the YDA will jeopardize the promotion of General Cadre Doctors who have spent around 20 years serving the patients. Even that demand has been accommodated after they started a signature campaign on the issue.
Chief Minister’s Advisor on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique, however, denied there is a deadlock, saying even today more than 50 issues have been resolved, while the rest will be agreed upon in the next few days, and the matter not going “beyond two to three days”. “The government is not under pressure because of a peaceful demonstration, which is a democratic right of the doctors but things are moving in a positive direction,” he said, adding that other associations have to be taken on board as well. Sources further revealed that the two pending issues are about the registration of a criminal case against doctors, which is still ongoing and one matter related to finance. They said the government in the meeting asked the representatives to wait for just a few days to consult with the Finance Department, besides the availability of senior politicians including Senator Ishaq Dar will also be possible by then.
YDA spokesperson Dr Nasir, who is also a part of the negotiations told Pakistan Today that the YDA will go on with the scheduled protest because the delegates of doctors have arrived from far flung districts such as Rahim Yar Khan and now it is very difficult for them to call it off, without signing of an agreement. To a question, he said, “the government has been saying the same thing for the past three months but has shown no actual progress, so we will march into the GOR-I and hold a sit in in front of the 7-Club road [the chief minister’s office].” He said the 302 case registered against doctors is also on their top priority.
