KARACHI:
Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) members joined the protest camp set up by the Sindh Doctors Welfare Association (SDWA) outside Civil Hospital Karachi on Thursday, and threatened to extend their strike to other district headquarters as well if the provincial government continues to turn a deaf ear to doctors’ demands.
Three doctors at the hospital, Dr Khalil Pathan, Dr Usman Mako and Dr Nisar Ali Shah have been on a complete hunger strike since Monday. “I have not eaten a single morsel since then,” said Dr Pathan. “If our hunger can do some good for the community, then we will not eat at all.”
Dr Shah, who is also the general secretary of SDWA, was admitted to the hospital’s ICU Wednesday, where he is continuing his hunger strike. While talking to The Express Tribune, he lamented that, “It seems like we have already wasted our lives. Why should we worry about personal health now?” Dr Shah has been stuck in grade 17 for the last 24 years.
This is the second stage of the protest in which three other doctors will join the camp every day. Speaking about the success of the effort, Dr Shah said, “Our goal is to continue the movement and we are hopeful that it will be successful, as all of our demands are genuine.”
Doctors working for the Sindh health department, including general cadre doctors, specialists and dental surgeons, are involved in the protest.
Talking to The Express Tribune, SDWA president Dr Ghulam Mujtaba Memon said that while the strike originated in Karachi, doctors all over the province are united in their struggle to force the government to implement the Sindh High Court’s decision regarding establishing an appropriate promotion mechanism for doctors.
The high court ruled in favour of the doctors twice, first in March 2011 and then again on June 1, 2011. The court gave the government 90 days to implement its decision after the second decision, but no action has been taken as yet. The doctors filed a contempt of court appeal in December 2011 but to no avail yet.
Dr Memon complained that only government doctors in Sindh do not have a service structure. Punjab is working on a four-tier ad hoc system that it adopted in 1994. “But the situation is so bad over here that some doctors remain in the same grade even after 24 years.” Almost 15,000 doctors remain affected by the situation in Sindh.
Memon also claimed that the health department has not appointed any doctors in the last 15 years, which, coupled with population growth, has caused a severe shortage of doctors across the province.
Civic Centre comes under assault as KIHD and Abbasi Shaheed staff lead protests
As the seventh day allotted to the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) for regularising its hospital and dispensary staff came to a close, the concerned employees initiated new protests that resulted in severe traffic jams along two main roads of the city.
Nearly 1,374 employees from about 21 hospitals and dispensaries working under KMC, lead by the staff of Abbassi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) and Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KIHD), have called for their jobs to be regularised.
Both ASH and KIHD observed a complete strike on Thursday, causing a lot of hardship for patients. A spokesperson told The Express Tribune that all wards at KIHD, including its OPD, were completely shut. A similar scene prevailed at Abbasi Shaheed. Emergency wards at both hospitals, however, were adequately staffed and functioning properly.
Employees of KIHD and ASH began their protest a week ago, because of non-payment of their salaries. This forced the KMC to ultimately issue them cheques totaling Rs162 million in lieu of two months salary. The protestors then gave KMC a week to regularise the jobs of all the 1,374 employees in various hospitals and dispensaries under its control.
Earlier in the day, staff of KIHD and other KMC hospitals started for Abbasi Shaheed, disrupting traffic on main Nazimabad road for almost three hours. Later, the protesters packed into four buses and made for the KMC administrator’s office in Civic Center.
When not allowed to enter KMC premises, the protestors turned violent. “We wanted to enter peacefully but the guards stopped us and misbehaved with us, thus provoking the crowd,” said Abdul Basit, a paramedic from Abbasi Shaheed. Protesters later burned tires at the Main University Road, causing traffic along it to be diverted to other routes.
While addressing the crowd, KMC municipal commissioner Matanat Ali Khan said that their demands were not in his hands anymore, as he had already sent the signed summary to the administrator of Karachi.
A KIHD official who did not want to be named told The Express Tribune that the protesters will not give up until their demands are met.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 10th, 2012.
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