Medical mayhem in the works

YDA threatens mass resignations during campaign for pay raises.

LAHORE:

Punjab chapter of the Young Doctors’ Association plans to coordinate mass resignations by public hospital doctors across the province in view of the government’s failure to meet their demands.

Dr Rai Ahmed Khan, YDA’s Services Hospital president, said that the general council had decided to coordinate for the resignations of 10,000 to 12,000 doctors across the province to be submitted simultaneously.

He said that the strike was part of a movement to ensure that doctors were paid wages equivalent of international pay scales for medical professionals.

“By next year there will be an acute shortage of doctors in Pakistan. At this point even a police constable is better paid than a doctor,” said Khan.

Khan said working abroad was an attractive option for doctors. He said that the YDA had devised a plan to ensure that the protest will not affect patient care.

Shoaib Iqbal, another YDA official, said that the doctors must be given a proper salary. Iqbal insisted that the strike call was not politically motivated. He said that the issue had been on the table for over a year.

Iqbal said the three-day protest included setting up outdoor OPDs, followed by province-wide sit-in and mass resignations.

Doctor’s politics

The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has denounced the YDA Punjab tactics. It has also pointed out that the organisation was in no way a representative body of doctors.

A PMA official said that the Punjab YDA was on a politically motivated campaign marked by hooliganism. He said the OPD closures had been achieved by coercive methods including locking doors, abusing and threatening the registrar. “Their decision to set up an OPD on the road is a clear indication that the strike has not worked,” he said. The Punjab YDA, he said, was a splinter faction of the YDA Pakistan, the split showing the power struggle between Dr Rana Sohail and Dr Hamid Butt.

YDA Pakistan secretary general Dr Salman Kazmi said that this organisation and the PMA had agreed on January 1 that there should be a national campaign for a pay raise for doctors. He said that they would soon hold a press conference to expose the ulterior motives behind Punjab YDA’s actions.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2011.