Posting paradigm: Polyclinic doctors boycott OPDs for two hours

Patients suffer as staffers protest transfer of executive director

ISLAMABAD: Patients at Polyclinic faced hardships as doctors continued into the second day of their boycott of outpatient departments (OPDs) for two hours on Friday to protest against the posting of a senior hospital official.

Doctors, mostly members of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) and a joint action committee, boycotted the OPDs from 9am to 11am to demand the revocation of transfer order of Executive Director Dr Raja Amjad Mahmood.

Emergency departments remained open.

The Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) issued transfer orders for Dr Mahmood on Wednesday, replacing him with Dr Iftikhar Ahmed Naroo.

Young doctors and joint action committee members at Polyclinic announced that they would boycott the OPDs from 9am to 11am every day till Eid and they would continue their protest until Mahmood is reappointed.

On Friday, some senior doctors checked on patients from 8am to 9am before joining the protesting doctors.



Muhammad Sajjad, the father of patient who had been waiting since morning to consult a doctor and get a date for his daughter’s operation, said that he went from pillar-to-post but could not find any doctors willing to help him.

Farman Shah, a hernia patient who was waiting for a doctor outside the surgical OPD, said the staff attempted to shrug him away but he did not go away.

Saboor, a kidney patient outside the nephrology OPD, said that not a single doctor had turned up for duty as he had been waiting there for over two hours.

The protesting staff claimed that corrupt elements were feeling uneasy in going along with Dr Mahmood, who had not only launched several initiatives including uplift projects for the hospital in a short span of time but had also cancelled some shoddy contracts of the hospital.

Dr Naroo told The Express Tribune said that he will try to persuade the protesting doctors to end their boycott of OPDs. “It is a government decision and transfers and postings are a routine matter,” Dr Naroo said and added that they had welcomed Dr Mahmood when the government appointed him as executive director of hospital.

“Dr Mahmood initiated some good initiatives for the hospital in the short span of two months and no one can deny that. But it was also a team work and we vow to carry forward those initiatives for further improvement in service delivery,” Dr Naroo said. Dr Mahmood has been transferred to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences as the head of the Maternal and Child Health Care Centre.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 2^nd, 2016.