Doctors of Cardiac Centre at Pims plan two-hour protest

Demand that their contracts be renewed, dues released

ISLAMABAD: Doctors of cardiac centre at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) will go on a two-hour strike per day from Thursday (today) to protest the non-payment of their dues and regularisation of services which have been pending for almost two years.

Nine surgeons, physicians, and technicians who work for the critical cardiac care unit of Pims had earlier stopped working for two hours on May 9 in a token protest against the non-payment of their dues.

The employees had subsequently decided to go on complete strike from June 1. Nut later, on the request of patients, they decided to abbreviate their strike, restricting it from 8am to 10am.

“A young male patient, two of whose heart valves are leaking, is to be operated upon on Thursday,” said a doctor. “On his mother’s request, the doctors decided to hold a token strike in the morning and start work afterwards,” he said.

The aggrieved health experts have been working without salaries since June 30, 2015, when their contracts expired.

The cardiac centre had hired about 37 employees of different cadres when it started operations some 12 years ago.

In 2016 the regularisation committee of the government regularised the services of some 22 employees of grade 15 and below. But nine employees of higher grade were not regularised nor were their contracts renewed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2017.