FAISALABAD/LAHORE: After failed negotiations with the government, the strike held across Punjab by the Young Doctors’ Association (YDA) has continued. Services for emergency and other departments have been halted.
Earlier, the young doctors’ strike had continued across Punjab, including Rawalpindi, against the non-acceptance of their outstanding demands.
Young Doctors Association (YDA) stopped providing their services in all the three Allied Hospitals located in Rawalpindi. Moreover, the YDA also refused to provide their services in various government hospitals and Allied Hospitals located in Lahore.
The strike had put lives of many patients at stake coming to Holy Family, District Headquarters Hospital Rawalpindi and Benazir Bhutto Central Hospital. The YDA declined to offer their services. Therefore, the patients were moved towards private hospitals for treatment due to unavailability of staff in government hospitals.
The YDA Rawalpindi had warned that they will only call off the strike when their demands are met and Punjab health secretary is sacked from his position.
DHQ Rawalpindi YDA President Dr Shahid, while talking to Online, said that the doctors came on roads when the authorities failed to negotiate approved the Central induction policy, regularise the Ad-hoc doctors, and completion of pending projects in Punjab pending for the last several months.
After the promotions and appointments were not made in accordance with Central Induction Policy; therefore, a shortage of staff took a weird turn now across the Punjab, particularly in Rawalpindi. He stressed that the demands also include completion of the pending health related projects to provide better and state-of-art health facilities to people of Punjab.
He said that various projects are pending, which include emergency of Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Urology Hospital Rawalpindi, Mother and Children Hospital Asghar Mall Road Rawalpindi, Surgical Tower in Mayo Hospital Lahore, Radiology Department Surgical Hospital Lahore, a state-of-art dental hospital, and increasing number of beds to 1750 in Nishter Hospital Multan. He also urged the authorities to improve the security situation of all the government Hospitals, so that lives of patients and doctors could be protected.
He mentioned that no action was taken against the Sahiwal Assistant Commissioner, who forcefully stormed into the hostel of female doctors and harassed them. He said that government has not taken any action regarding the legal demands of the doctor; in fact, they are involved in acting on the policy of arresting doctors and brutally torturing them with the help of state institutions.
He said that Health Secretary Najam Shah is a major hurdle in approval of legal demands; moreover, he is also involved in the victimization of doctors. He maintained that now the YDA had put his removal as the top most demand, and if the government is not serious in changing their attitude then we will announce our next action. He warned that if the government fails to accept the demand then our campaign will be expanded to countrywide protests.
Meanwhile, due to ongoing protests in Rawalpindi, the situation in the three allied hospitals is in worse condition and no medical treatment is being in the hospitals. The administration has sought all the senior doctors, who are deployed on four to six hours duty in emergency and OPDs along with various wards. Moreover, the senior doctors are only marking their attendance, while no one is found doing duty properly.
The YDA strike left four dead in Faisalabad’s Allied Hospital between Tuesday and Wednesday, the two days of young doctors’ strike across Punjab.
The YDA has also left patients suffering at many hospitals across Punjab on the second day of their strike.
The strike has also left patients in limbo at many health care facilities across Punjab, including Nishtar Hospital in Multan, Allied Hospital in Faisalabad and Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Rahim Yar Khan.
Moreover, the strike had caused deaths of two patients in Jinnah and Services Hospital, Lahore; it was reported on the first day of the strike on Tuesday. But the administrations of the hospitals denied the occurrence of any such incident.
Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif has taken notice of the deaths that have occurred at Allied Hospital of Faisalabad during the two days of the strike.
According to hospital sources, he has ordered an enquiry committee be formed and a report must be submitted within 24 hours.
