Unpaid allowance: ATH teachers’ strike continues for second day

Hospital’s board of governors expected to meet later in the week to resolve the matter

ABBOTABAD: Doctors teaching at the Ayub Medical College (AMC) continued their token strike for a second day on Tuesday after the attached hospitals’ board refused to pay them their ‘health professional allowance’.

The doctors had boycotted classes and staged a protest for two hours before taking out a rally within the premises of the Ayub Teaching Hospital (the attached hospital of AMC) on Monday after the hospital’s administration refused to accept their demands.

On Tuesday, the doctors continued to boycott their classes. They announced to continue their strike until their demands were accepted.

They also threatened to expand their protest if the provincial government and the ATH’s Board of Governors refused to accept their demands.

Doctors teaching at medical colleges and or practicing in districts are required to be paid their health professional allowances, guaranteed under the Medical Teaching Institute Act of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Dr Daud Iqbal, a provincial spokesman for the People’s Doctors Forum and works at the ATH, claimed that medical officers at the hospital including nurses and paramedics were paid health professional allowance but associate professors, professors and senior doctors teaching at the associated college were deprived of this facility.

According to the K-P Health Department,  Rs42,000 to Rs50,000 is paid to medical officers based on seniority, while allowance for district specialists starts from Rs67,000 up to Rs120,000.

He added that such discrimination was not only tantamount to disrespecting senior doctors, but could also cause them to lose interest.

He urged the ATH’s board and the provincial government pay the senior doctors their due allowance.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2016.