ATH doctors go on strike

Set up OPDs on hospital lawn to examine patients, demand hostels

ABBOTTABAD: With the Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) board yet to announce any accommodation for medical staff on campus, doctors at the hospital went on strike on Tuesday.

However, the doctors did not stop treating patients, setting up an outpatient department on the hospital’s ground by pitching tents.

Doctors at the hospital have been demanding that the ATH board improve living conditions and security for doctors who have been forced to live in off-campus residences. Doctors claim that at least two of their colleagues had died under mysterious circumstances in rented premises around the hospital – a situation which would not have arisen had the doctors been living in specialised residences built in the hospital.

Tuesday’s strike had been called by the Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) with all doctors, junior and senior, at the hospital supporting it. People’s Doctors Forum (PDF) also supported the strike.

However, to stop the strike’s impact from being passed on to patients, the doctors pitched tents and treated visitors in the hospital’s grounds and car park. Though it still caused patients problems.

“We have examined 2,000 patients during our day-long strike, which will continue indefinitely,” said PDA President Dr Amin Afridi while talking to The Express Tribune.

He added that doctors’ bodies had been demanding that the hospital administration ensures security of hundreds of doctors working at the hospital and shift their residences from private hostels located outside the facility.

Recounting the death of two of their colleagues in private hostels in the last six months, Dr Afridi said that the lives of doctors were at stake.

He lamented that the hospital administration was content on spending Rs12 million a year on accommodation for doctors in private hostels but not building a hostel for these doctors in the hospital.

He claimed that despite the enactment of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act 2015, there had been no improvement in healthcare services for patients at the ATH while the management had received Rs120 million to pay for salaries and other perks and privileges of hospital administration over the past three years.

He also lamented the reduction of seats in the College of Dentistry, and delays in completing the gynaecology and children block at the hospital. He accused the administration of mismanagement and wrongdoings.

Speaking to newsmen, PDF’s provincial spokesman Dr Daud Iqbal said that doctors were a soft target for criminals and that the mysterious deaths of two ATH doctors recently was proof of how insecure private hostels were.

Pointing to the vast swaths of underutilised land part of the hospital’s estate, he said that ATH’s administration spending millions on private hostels spoke volumes about their policies.

To a question, Dr Iqbal said that all doctors continued to perform their duties, perform routine surgeries, and provide treatment to both the indoor and outdoor patients during the strike.

Meanwhile, a hospital official said that the ATH administration had moved a proposal for building a 100-room hostel for doctors in the hospital to the provincial government seven months ago. He added that the yet-to-be-approved proposal estimated that the hostel would cost around Rs45 million to build.

However, as an immediate measure, the official said that the administration would renovate the existing hostel building meant for paramedical staff to adjust around 25 doctors over the next few days.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2017.