Young Doctors’ Association Punjab on Thursday gave a fresh strike call hours after announcing to end their protest and to resume work at the public sector teaching hospitals.
YDA Punjab spokesperson Aftab Ashraf said the doctors would not work at the Out-Patients Departments or the wards. If the demands were not met by Friday evening, he said, the strike would be extended to the emergency wards. He told The Express Tribune that the strike call was issued because the chief minister had failed to show up at their late night meeting with the provincial government. He said the government had also refused to commit a minimum Rs20,000 raise in salaries demanded by the association. He added that raise in the salaries being negotiated was for post-graduate residents and house officers and did not include associate professors, professors and senior registrars.
Earlier, YDA Punjab had called off the strike after a meeting with Senior Advisor to the Chief Minister Sirdar Zulfiqar Khosa on Wednesday morning.
Talking to media at Services Hospital Hostels after, YDA Punjab officials said that the government had assured them of addressing of their five demands. These, the officials said, included a raise in salaries from July 1, pay protection and regularisation, revised job structures, security at hospitals and medical facilities for families of post-graduate residents and house officers.
YDA Punjab’s Lahore General Hospital chapter president Rai Ahmed said he expected the raise in salary to be between Rs20,000 and Rs30,000.
YDA Punjab president Hamid Butt said senior doctors had been present at the emergency wards of public hospitals to cover up for the absence of the protesting doctors.
He said that the YDA would continue to strive for improvements in the public healthcare system in the province.
YDA Punjab spokesperson Nasir Bukhari said that there were several problem areas in the public healthcare system in the country. He said the young doctors’ protest could not be held responsible for all of them. He said this included a severe shortage of medicines and beds.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 01st, 2011.
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