Insecure accommodation: ATH doctors threaten to go on strike

Health care professionals demand compensation for victims’ families

ABBOTTABAD: With two doctors dying under mysterious circumstances in private residences in the past six months, doctors at the Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) have threatened to go on strike unless the health facility’s board compensates the families of their colleagues and starts building a new hostel block for them.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, office bearers of the Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) said that said that due to negligent and errant planning by ATH’s Board of Directors, doctors were losing their lives in private residences.

PDA President Dr Amin and General Secretary Dr Zaheer threatened to go on strike unless the board accepts their demands.

They noted that despite the fact the hospital has considerable space available, the board had yet to approve construction of hostels for doctors, forcing hundreds of staff to live in private housing outside the hospital.

They added that the deaths of two of their colleagues had failed to move the board as well.

The association’s members added that ATH had been paying doctors Rs13 million every year on as rent to private hostels but was not interested in building a hostel for the doctors.

Refuting claims made by the hospital’s management, they said that medicines and other treatment facilities were not available for patients. On the other hand, they said the hospital’s administration had been wasting millions on irrelevant projects.

They demanded that the hospital administration compensates the family of Dr Faisal, a house officer who had been found dead in a private hostel two days ago and starts construction on a new hostel block.

Threatening to go on strike from next week, they said that they would examine visitors to the outpatient departments in the administration’s offices of and lawns surrounding the offices.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2017.