Sit-in staged: Demands of protesting doctors accepted

HPA to all doctors, paramedics, nurses, non-clinical staff to be given from facility savings

ABBOTTABAD: Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) Board of Governors (BoG) accepted most of the demands of protesting doctors at a meeting held at the hospital’s conference room on Saturday.

According to BoG Secretary Dr Siddique Rehman, BoG Chairperson Javed Khan Pani chaired the moot and all members were present. He said BoG discussed the demands of protesting doctors in detail and decided to approve the payment of health professional allowance (HPA) to all the doctors, paramedics, nurses and non-clinical staff.

Rehman said although the government has not yet disbursed the budget to ATH, its management will pay HPA to employees from its own savings from July 1.

Moreover, the two-month arrears of stipends of house officers, along with an annual increase of 10% in staff salaries as per government’s announcement, were also approved. Rehman said for addressing residential problems of doctors, BoG also decided to construct 50 hostel rooms on ATH premises for which the provincial government will approve funding.

Later, ATH Medical Director Dr Salim Afzal Khan, following instruction from K-P Health Secretary, issued a notification abolishing the exit exams of house officers before their formal registration with PMDC. The decision was also endorsed by PMDC countrywide.

Agony continues

Meanwhile, protesting doctors continued their strike for the third consecutive day depriving patients of their fundamental right to health care services.

According to an insider, at least 200 elective surgeries were deferred by doctors and over 6,000 patients visiting out-patient department (OPD)—2,000 daily—were denied services during the last three days due to strike.

“It was a lobby that was deliberately dividing hospital staff on linguistic grounds,” Nawaz Khan, a social activist said, adding, strikes for minor issues only added to the misery of people of Hazara.

“If protesters respected their oath and accepted their ethical responsibilities, they would have chosen negotiations or even token strikes to push for demands,” he said.

Faheem Abbasi, a resident of Jinnahabad, condemned the decision of strike and demanded legal action against those responsible for it. He said this was the eighth strike during the last four months in the region. “While a majority of protesters are not from Hazara, the people of the region were the ones suffering the most.”

Abbasi said during the three days of strike, several patients would have died due to negligence of protesting doctors. “The hospital administration must share the details of all such deaths with the government and public and doctors of concerned wards should be tried in courts,” he said.

According to Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) President Dr Aminullah Afridi, protesting doctors held a sit-in outside the conference room and dispersed peacefully when BoG chairperson assured them of meeting majority of their demands.

He said the strike was still intact and its continuation or discontinuation will be decided at a meeting scheduled for 9pm on Saturday.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2016.