Stakes rising: Protesting doctors arrested, released

Police arrest around 40 doctors as they allegedly try to enter the Punjab Assembly building.

LAHORE:

Police arrested around 40 doctors on Tuesday when they allegedly tried to enter the Punjab Assembly building. They were released after about an hour.

The arrests promoted the Young Doctor’s Association to call on doctors all over the province to stop work. The YDA also threatened the government with mass resignations from teaching hospitals. Health Secretary Fawad Hasan Fawad said senior doctors were called to all teaching hospitals to look after the emergency wards.

“We have decided to withdraw from our duties and stop working. The patients will not be our responsibility, but the chief minister’s,” Hamid Butt, the YDA Punjab president, said.

Earlier, some 300 doctors had gathered at Charing Cross. They were told by the police to stay away from the security cordon around the assembly building. When the protesters tried to get inside the assembly premises and the security cordon was broken, police said, they arrested some of them.

Butt said the protesting doctors had agreed not to use violence or resist arrests. He said the responsibility for the suspension of services at the hospitals lay with the government which had forced the doctors on to streets. “Our goal is to force the elected leaders to negotiate with us,” he explained.

Dr Nasir Bukhari, a YDA official who was among those arrested, told The Express Tribune, that the on-going strike was one of the longest by doctors in the world. He said that a lack of trust had developed between the governments and that the YDA. He said the association had decided to close down the in-patient wards followed by emergency wards.

He said the YDA had directed its orgnisations at all teaching hospitals to obtain written resignations from the members to be forwarded at discretion of the leadership should the situation warrant that.

Dr Rifqa Awan, the YDA Punjab press secretary, too said “We are collecting the resignations. We have told all YDA chapters to prepare for that.”

She said it was time for the senior doctors to take shoulder the extra responsibilities commensurate with their (high) salaries.

Most of the protesting doctors said that resigning would not be an issue for them considering they were grossly underpaid.

Dr Umair bin Nasir of Mayo Hospital said that doctors had been forced into a corner. He said that all government’s promises so far had proved lies.

He regretted that the government was not interested in their welfare and said he suspected that it would be quite willing to accept the resignations.

“The other day, I was stopped by a traffic warden and I told him I could not afford the ticket,” said Bin Nasir. “He asked me what my salary was and let me go because he makes more than I do.”

Health Secretary Fawad Hassan Fawad told The Express Tribune that the chief minister had order the doctors’ release out of good will. He said the government had been restrained in dealing with doctors.  He said that any escalation would have a negative impact. Yet, he said, the government would hold a dialogue with the YDA Punjab leadership on Wednesday.

He said that had the doctors not tried to break into the Punjab Assembly, there would have been no arrests.

Fawad said that the government was in contact with the YDA headers. He said he did not foresee any resignations. Should the situation deteriorate, he said, the government had a contingency plan.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2011.